Novel
Swallowed
L'Avalée des avalés
Réjean Ducharme · 1966
Synopsis
Bérénice Einberg, nine years old, grows up in a former abbey on an island in the Saint Lawrence, between a Jewish father and a Catholic mother who have divided the children between them: she goes to the father, her elder brother Christian to the mother. She devotes an exclusive love to this brother, wages war on the adult world and invents a language of her own, Berenician, so as not to be swallowed by anything. Her father sends her to New York, to an uncle and aunt who are very religious.
Context
The book was published in Paris in October 1966, by Gallimard. A Goncourt finalist, it set off a quarrel: the weekly Minute started the rumour of a front man, taken up in Quebec by Quartier Latin and Le Devoir, and the very existence of the author was doubted; he replied with a clarification in Le Devoir. The novel bends French to its own purposes, with portmanteau words, puns and invented insults.
Who it is for
A novel of medium length, in the first person, in an invented language that resists. One must accept not understanding everything and letting oneself be carried by the rhythm.
Prizes and reception
Governor General's Award for 1966, the year of its publication, after being among the Goncourt finalists.
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