The Sky Above the Roof

A shimmering and uneasy novel … Appanah exposes disconnection, trauma, sadness, but works them delicately into something so very beautiful and strange – Daniel HahnThrough lyrical prose, flawlessly translated by Geoffrey Strachan, Appanah unpeels the layers of the family’s turmoil – Lucy Popescu * Times Literary Supplement *Appanah’s writing is truly beautiful, shimmering in places, poetic in others * Litro *With this magnificent text Nathacha Appanah has never been so close to the poetry that she carries in her work. Great, great literature. – Mohammed Aïssaoui * Le Figaro Littéraire *The author of The Tropic of Violence creates an unexpected opening in the gray sky of everyday life. It unveils a world in which the most vulnerable or the strongest among us can climb, sheltered from the blows of life: poetry. Breathtaking. – Flavie Philipon * Elle *It’s beautiful, extraordinarily delicate – François Busnel * La Grande Librairie *Shrouded in darkness and rare poetry, Nathacha Appanah’s new novel is a haunting song that leaves a lasting mark. – Alexandre Fillon * Les Échos Weekend *There is tale in this novel, a sweetness about pain and perpetual marginality, from which emanates a dreamlike atmosphere. – Valérie Marin La Meslée * Le Point *Nathacha Appanah’s intimate and luminous writing questions the inevitability of the transmission of trauma from one generation to another. – Jean-Christophe Ploquin * La Croix *Nathacha Appanah does not judge; she looks, writes, describes, heals wounds, gently blows on scars. It is very sweet. Very painful. Very loving, too. – Éric Libiot * L’Express *Tender and lyrical – Jonathan Coe * i *

Nathacha Appanah was born in Mauritius in 1973. She was brought up there and worked as a journalist before moving to France in 1998. The Last Brother, her first novel to be translated into English, was awarded the FNAC Fiction Prize in 2007 in its French edition. Her novel Tropic of Violence was winner of the Prix Femina des Lyceens in 2016, as well as seven other French literary awards.