The Living Days

She wanted to immerse herself utterly in the presence of this child’s strong, vibrant body. She drank in his vigor, inhaled the fiery energy he exuded. No matter why he was there. He had granted her reprieve. A chance encounter on Portobello Road incites an unsettling, magnetic attraction between Mary, an elderly spinster, and Cub, a boy from Brixton, driving her crumbling world into heightened delusion. The two struggle to keep their footing as white supremacy, desperation and class conflict collide on the streets of the increasingly polarised metropolis. Award-winning Mauritian author and poet Ananda Devi paints an unforgettable portrait of London at its most bewitching, and most dangerous. At once realistic and fantastical, The Living Days encapsulates Devi’s daring, unflinching talent, and offers a masterful dissection of the queasy nature of desire muddled with power.

About the Author :
Born in Mauritius, Ananda Devi is a multi-award winning novelist, short-story writer and poet. Translated into a dozen languages, she is considered a powerful voice in modern African writing in French. Winner of the 2024 Neustadt International Prize for Literature for the entirety of her work, she holds a PhD in social anthropology from SOAS, London, where she lived for several years. She has also lived in Congo-Brazzaville and currently resides in Ferney-Voltaire, France. In 2023 she won the Grand Prix de l'Héroïne Madame Figaro for Sylvia P., a biographical essay on American poet Sylvia Plath. Her earlier prizes include the Prix Étonnants Voyageurs for her novel Manger l’autre (2018), the Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises (awarded by the Académie Française in 2014), the Prix Mokanda (2012) and the 2006 Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie for Ève de ses décombres, published in English as Eve out of Her Ruins in 2016. In 2015, she was featured at the PEN World Voices Festival in New York. She was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2010.

Review :
'Beautifully written, visceral and ecstatic. Unafraid, as Angels might be, to bear witness to the force of entropy pulling us all towards death.' - Preti Taneja, author of We That Are Young 'A demanding and important book by a true artist and a great writer' - Lara Pawson, author of This Is the Place To Be ‘Jeffrey Zuckerman’s translation is perfect in its power and precision, a magnificent gem.’ — Jennifer Croft, translator of Man Booker International winner Flights ‘I am loving this, Ananda Devi’s latest in English translation. Sentences and thoughts that go where you don’t expect them to, but also exactly where feels right once you’ve finished them. The translation is so... bright on the page. Devi’s London bright in the mind’s eye. ’ — Sophie Hughes, translator of The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán shortlisted for the Booker International 2019 'The Mauritian author explores how legacies of colonialism and empire persist amid acts of cruelty and violence in London ... A meditation on urban inequality, in which the politics of race and class loom large.' - Guardian 'This is a novel of great beauty as well as discomfiting disclosure. Ananda Devi's writing challenges us to reconfigure our own beliefs about right and wrong and to look beyond our own comfortable lives to consider the reality of others.' - New Internationalist 'Mary Grimes, the central character of The Living Days exists, like the novel itself, in a liminal space between the possible and the mythic; between material being and ghostly half-life... This is not a novel which offers any reassurance. We never enter a settled space of familiarity. Even within the internal logic of the novel, the nature of what we are reading becomes unstable... The Living Days is never a predictable novel, indeed it is never less than perplexing and unsettling.' - Irish Times 'Devi is alert to the ways in which social forces, such as racism and ageism, are reshaping London's already complex post-colonial landscape, and her fluid, poetic language memorably conjures a union of two outcasts.' - The New Yorker 'The finest Mauritian novelist at work today, Ananda Devi has long been the francophone saint of the outcast, the oppressed, and the derelict. This fluid translation of one of her darkest works gives the reader a glimpse at her profound talent and her unique ability to synthesize political rage with poetic lyricism.' - Albertine Bookshop 'Brutal and entirely believable, a gorgeous and haunting depiction of London and the real lives and memories of those unseen within it.' - Publishers Weekly 'A gorgeously written, profoundly upsetting fairy tale of race, class, power, and desire.' - Kirkus Reviews, starred review 'A fierce portrait of our times. . . Sensual and provocative writing, woven of dreams and nightmares, which slowly closes around the reader and holds them in its grasp.' - Le Monde des Livres 'Old age always bears a private violence. Ananda Devi describes its inevitable symptoms whilst ever letting us glimpse an illusion of spring.' - L'Humanité