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Down with the Poor!
'Through the poetic force of her writing, Sinha brings a broken world to burning point.' —Le Monde
Over the course of a night in police custody, a young woman tries to understand the rage that led her to assault a refugee on the Paris metro. She too is a foreigner, now earning a living as an interpreter for asylum seekers in the outskirts of the city. Down With the Poor! which borrows its title from a poem by Baudelaire is the story of a woman who, little by little, is contaminated by the violence of the world.
Over the course of a night in police custody, a young woman tries to understand the rage that led her to assault a refugee on the Paris metro. She too is a foreigner, now earning a living as an interpreter for asylum seekers in the outskirts of the city. Down With the Poor! which borrows its title from a poem by Baudelaire is the story of a woman who, little by little, is contaminated by the violence of the world.
200 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 2011
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512 people want to read
About the author
Shumona Sinha
12 books13 followersShumona Sinha, also spelled Sumana Sinha; (Bengali: সুমনা সিনহা, Calcutta, 27 June 1973), is a naturalised French writer born in Calcutta, West Bengal, India, who lives in France.
In her interviews for the French media, Shumona Sinha claims that her homeland is no longer India, nor even France, but the French language.
In her interviews for the French media, Shumona Sinha claims that her homeland is no longer India, nor even France, but the French language.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
March 19, 2023
An incredibly intense, unsettling and hypnotic meditation on literal and symbolic violence, both institutional and individual. Sinha’s story’s an ironic take on the Baudelaire poem referenced in her title and an intricate probing of issues around colonialism’s legacy, race, gender and identity. Franco-Indian poet and novelist Shumona Sinha’s award-winning book’s narrated by an unnamed woman who left India to settle in France – although neither country’s ever explicitly named. But now she’s been arrested after attacking a migrant man on a train, a seemingly random act that sets off a complex chain of associations as the woman alternates between a holding cell and interrogation by the blonde-haired Monsieur K. The narrator is a translator in a centre processing people seeking asylum, although almost all the ones she deals with are male. It seems her victim is one of the countless number she’s dealt with. As the night passes, the woman conjures up scenes from her life, her work and her past, punctuated by snippets of the stream of stories she interprets for the centre’s assessors as they move towards judgement. Stories further complicated by divides of culture and inequalities of gender and class.
Sinha’s narrator's deeply conflicted, keenly aware of the failings of the system through which migrants are granted or denied the right to remain, yet overwhelmed by feelings of contempt and revulsion towards the individuals whose words she’s responsible for translating. The result’s an immensely powerful indictment of institutional whiteness and the workings of the machinery set up to deal with migrants. But through the narrator’s reflections - her rage and confusion, her relentless ‘othering’ of the migrants she meets – Sinha also constructs a convincingly complex portrait of internalised racism and the destruction it leaves in its wake. Sinha’s narrative is beautifully constructed, lyrical and fluid it often reads like a prose poem. Although it’s by no means an autobiographical novel, it’s also firmly rooted in reality building on Sinha’s experiences as a translator for OFPRA the French immigration authority – she was fired not long after this appeared. Highly recommended. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan.
Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Deep Vellum for an ARC
Rating. 4 to 4.5 rounded up.
Sinha’s narrator's deeply conflicted, keenly aware of the failings of the system through which migrants are granted or denied the right to remain, yet overwhelmed by feelings of contempt and revulsion towards the individuals whose words she’s responsible for translating. The result’s an immensely powerful indictment of institutional whiteness and the workings of the machinery set up to deal with migrants. But through the narrator’s reflections - her rage and confusion, her relentless ‘othering’ of the migrants she meets – Sinha also constructs a convincingly complex portrait of internalised racism and the destruction it leaves in its wake. Sinha’s narrative is beautifully constructed, lyrical and fluid it often reads like a prose poem. Although it’s by no means an autobiographical novel, it’s also firmly rooted in reality building on Sinha’s experiences as a translator for OFPRA the French immigration authority – she was fired not long after this appeared. Highly recommended. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan.
Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Deep Vellum for an ARC
Rating. 4 to 4.5 rounded up.
December 4, 2023
The nuances of language intersect with the trauma of colonialism in Shumona Sinha’s intensely scathing novel. An unnamed female narrator ruminates about her life and circumstances during the course of one night.She has plenty of time to think, having been arrested for attacking a migrant man on a metro train. The narrator is also a diasporic migrant, originally from an unspecified country in Southeast Asia. She has settled in her host country, which is most likely France. There is irony in her predicament because she works as an interpreter in an asylum center, presumably utilizing her skills to aid her clients’ transition to their new environment.
Instead,it quickly becomes apparent that the institutional dysfunction of the asylum process has trapped our narrator in a cycle of despair and rage.Her detention on this one night is physical and represents a small manifestation of the emotional prison that continually confines her. She is engaged in a daily struggle to reconcile the inconsistent welcome and messages transmitted by the host country to its newly arriving migrants seeking succor and aid.
Because the narrator is an interpreter, she is attuned to the shadings of language, idiom and expression.As she conveys the stories of the migrants,petitioners and lawyers, she becomes immersed in a web of lies,deceptions and half truths embedded in these exchanges.Consequently,she has found herself engaged in a Sisyphean struggle to reconcile ideals with reality. She observes that the participants’ relationship to this country is one of lust without love. She is in a state of perpetual mental captivity that is much more degrading than her one night of confinement.
Her night is spent alternating between her holding cell and periodic interrogations by the officious Monsieur K.These episodes trigger an internal rage surrounding gender and class disparities embodied in the implacable nature of bureaucracy. She realizes that she is enclosed in a cycle of institutional racism which creates a world bereft of heroes and reduces her to a level of behavior similar to that of her oppressors.
The narrator’s reflections coalesce into a searing indictment of institutional indifference and unwarranted entitlement. Told in prose that alternates between stark and lyrical, the journey with the narrator becomes a powerful condemnation of the long term effects of colonialism upon minority groups promulgated by indifferent institutions not attuned to the needs of its newly aspiring citizens. The journey concludes but the rage lingers.
Instead,it quickly becomes apparent that the institutional dysfunction of the asylum process has trapped our narrator in a cycle of despair and rage.Her detention on this one night is physical and represents a small manifestation of the emotional prison that continually confines her. She is engaged in a daily struggle to reconcile the inconsistent welcome and messages transmitted by the host country to its newly arriving migrants seeking succor and aid.
Because the narrator is an interpreter, she is attuned to the shadings of language, idiom and expression.As she conveys the stories of the migrants,petitioners and lawyers, she becomes immersed in a web of lies,deceptions and half truths embedded in these exchanges.Consequently,she has found herself engaged in a Sisyphean struggle to reconcile ideals with reality. She observes that the participants’ relationship to this country is one of lust without love. She is in a state of perpetual mental captivity that is much more degrading than her one night of confinement.
Her night is spent alternating between her holding cell and periodic interrogations by the officious Monsieur K.These episodes trigger an internal rage surrounding gender and class disparities embodied in the implacable nature of bureaucracy. She realizes that she is enclosed in a cycle of institutional racism which creates a world bereft of heroes and reduces her to a level of behavior similar to that of her oppressors.
The narrator’s reflections coalesce into a searing indictment of institutional indifference and unwarranted entitlement. Told in prose that alternates between stark and lyrical, the journey with the narrator becomes a powerful condemnation of the long term effects of colonialism upon minority groups promulgated by indifferent institutions not attuned to the needs of its newly aspiring citizens. The journey concludes but the rage lingers.
October 2, 2022
Words were added to words. Files piled up. An endless procession of men. You could no longer distinguish their faces or bodies. Together like a huge dark heap they made us uncomfortable. They had to lie, to tell a story that was entirely different from their own to seek political asylum. They took on the burden of a life that was completely foreign to them. They attempted to slip into the skin of people created by the dealers of men, their countrymen. Obviously we rarely believed their stories. Purchased along with the journey and the passport, they were going to yellow and crumble into bits along with so many other stories accumulated over the years.
Original:
Les mots s’ajoutaient aux mots. Les dossiers s’entassaient. Les hommes défilaient sans fin. On ne distinguait plus leur visage ou leur corps. Ensemble comme un gigantesque amas obscur ils nous mettaient mal à l’aise. Ils étaient obligés de mentir, de raconter une tout autre histoire que la leur pour tenter l’asile politique. Évidemment on ne croyait presque jamais à leurs histoires. Achetées avec le trajet et le passeport, elles allaient jaunir et tomber en miettes avec tant d’autres histoires accumulées depuis des années.
Down With The Poor' (2022) is Teresa Lavender Fagan's translation of Shumona Sinha's 2nd novel 'Assommons les pauvres!' (2011). The title comes from Baudelaire's prose poem in which the first-person narrator strikes and assaults a beggar, hoping to provoke a response that will restore the man's pride. In Edward K Kaplan's translation:
This novel begins:
Weary and defeated, I collapse onto the damp floor of my cell and think about those people who swarmed the seas like repellent jellyfish and heaved themselves up onto foreign shores. They were interviewed in half-hidden, half-open offices on the outskirts of the city. It was my job, and that of many others, to interpret their stories from one language to another, from the language of the peti-tioner to that of the host country. Stories filled with tears, bitter and cruel, winter stories, dirty rain and muddy streets, stories of monsoons so interminable that it seemed the sky would come crashing down.
I never imagined the path would be so short, that there could be a path, a shortcut, between the interview rooms and the damp cell in the police station where since yesterday I have been sketching my own family tree, the lines of my thoughts and my wanderings, the combinations of time and space, to justify my course and reconstruct the scene; so people will understand my sudden urge to strike the man, one of those immigrants, with a wine bottle.
Original:
Lasse et accablée, je m'abandonne sur le sol moite de ma cellule et je pense encore à ces gens-là qui envahissaient les mers comme des méduses mal-aimées et se jetaient sur les rives étrangères. On les recevait dans des bureaux semi-opaques, semi-transparents, dans les zones périphériques de la ville. J'étais chargée, comme beaucoup d'autres, de traduire leurs récits d'une langue à l'autre, de la langue du requérant à la langue d'accueil. Récits au goût de larmes, âpres et cruels, récits d'hiver, de pluie sale et de rues boueuses, de mousson interminable comme si le ciel allait crever.
Je n'aurais jamais pu imaginer que le chemin serait si court, qu'il y aurait un chemin, un raccourci entre les salles d'interrogatoire et la pièce moisie du commissariat où depuis hier je ne cesse de dessiner l'arbre généalogique de ma famille, les lignes de mes pensées et de mes errances, les combinaisons du temps et de l'espace, pour justifier mon parcours et reconstituer la scène, pour qu'on comprenne mon désir subit d'avoir frappé l‘home, in de ces immigrés, avec une bouteille du vin.
Our narrator, herself having emigrated from Bengal (West or Bangladesh is somewhat ambiguous) to France, is employed (as Sinha once was) by OFPRA (Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides) where she acts as an interpreter for those seeking asylum in the country. (Sinha actually lost her job as a result of this novel as she explained in an interview in the German press when the German translation won a prize).
As the narrator laments in the opening chapter, for those seeking political asylum, arguing for sanctuary on economic or environmental grounds (particularly the severe floods) is not a valid plea - they are forced to resort to, often invented, stories of political or religious persecution, which she must translate.
This drives rage within her - at a society where she struggles to integrate (and finds herself seeking casual sex with men while she is increasingly attracted to a blond woman who she works with); at the geographical north-south west-east divide where those in poorer countries pay an environmental price for the west's excesses; at the lingering impact of colonialism; at those who traffic the immigrants to France, selling them a passport and a cover story in return for money and a share of their future earnings; and even at the asylum seekers themselves, the "repellent jellyfish".
And this drives her to the Baudelairian response which opens the story - approached by a particularly persistent asylum seeker on the Metro she strikes him with a wine bottle. The novel is then her looking back on what drove her to this point from her custody cell and the police interrogation room.
A short but powerful work - and one that isn't afraid to push the boundaries of taste with our self-loathing narrator lashing out in all directions.
The publisher
This is the 22nd book from the wonderful publisher Les Fugitives, who specialise in Francophone literature. My reviews of all of their books can be found on my dedicated shelf.
Original:
Les mots s’ajoutaient aux mots. Les dossiers s’entassaient. Les hommes défilaient sans fin. On ne distinguait plus leur visage ou leur corps. Ensemble comme un gigantesque amas obscur ils nous mettaient mal à l’aise. Ils étaient obligés de mentir, de raconter une tout autre histoire que la leur pour tenter l’asile politique. Évidemment on ne croyait presque jamais à leurs histoires. Achetées avec le trajet et le passeport, elles allaient jaunir et tomber en miettes avec tant d’autres histoires accumulées depuis des années.
Down With The Poor' (2022) is Teresa Lavender Fagan's translation of Shumona Sinha's 2nd novel 'Assommons les pauvres!' (2011). The title comes from Baudelaire's prose poem in which the first-person narrator strikes and assaults a beggar, hoping to provoke a response that will restore the man's pride. In Edward K Kaplan's translation:
Suddenly, -- Oh miracle! Oh delight of the philosopher who verifies the excellence of his theory! -- I saw that antique carcass turn over, straighten up with a force I would never have suspected in a machine so peculiarly unhinged. And, with a look of hatred that seemed to me a good omen, the decrepit bandit flung himself on me, blackened both my eyes, broke four of my teeth, and, with the same tree branch beat me to a pulp. -- By my forceful medication, I had thus restored his pride and his life.
This novel begins:
Weary and defeated, I collapse onto the damp floor of my cell and think about those people who swarmed the seas like repellent jellyfish and heaved themselves up onto foreign shores. They were interviewed in half-hidden, half-open offices on the outskirts of the city. It was my job, and that of many others, to interpret their stories from one language to another, from the language of the peti-tioner to that of the host country. Stories filled with tears, bitter and cruel, winter stories, dirty rain and muddy streets, stories of monsoons so interminable that it seemed the sky would come crashing down.
I never imagined the path would be so short, that there could be a path, a shortcut, between the interview rooms and the damp cell in the police station where since yesterday I have been sketching my own family tree, the lines of my thoughts and my wanderings, the combinations of time and space, to justify my course and reconstruct the scene; so people will understand my sudden urge to strike the man, one of those immigrants, with a wine bottle.
Original:
Lasse et accablée, je m'abandonne sur le sol moite de ma cellule et je pense encore à ces gens-là qui envahissaient les mers comme des méduses mal-aimées et se jetaient sur les rives étrangères. On les recevait dans des bureaux semi-opaques, semi-transparents, dans les zones périphériques de la ville. J'étais chargée, comme beaucoup d'autres, de traduire leurs récits d'une langue à l'autre, de la langue du requérant à la langue d'accueil. Récits au goût de larmes, âpres et cruels, récits d'hiver, de pluie sale et de rues boueuses, de mousson interminable comme si le ciel allait crever.
Je n'aurais jamais pu imaginer que le chemin serait si court, qu'il y aurait un chemin, un raccourci entre les salles d'interrogatoire et la pièce moisie du commissariat où depuis hier je ne cesse de dessiner l'arbre généalogique de ma famille, les lignes de mes pensées et de mes errances, les combinaisons du temps et de l'espace, pour justifier mon parcours et reconstituer la scène, pour qu'on comprenne mon désir subit d'avoir frappé l‘home, in de ces immigrés, avec une bouteille du vin.
Our narrator, herself having emigrated from Bengal (West or Bangladesh is somewhat ambiguous) to France, is employed (as Sinha once was) by OFPRA (Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides) where she acts as an interpreter for those seeking asylum in the country. (Sinha actually lost her job as a result of this novel as she explained in an interview in the German press when the German translation won a prize).
As the narrator laments in the opening chapter, for those seeking political asylum, arguing for sanctuary on economic or environmental grounds (particularly the severe floods) is not a valid plea - they are forced to resort to, often invented, stories of political or religious persecution, which she must translate.
This drives rage within her - at a society where she struggles to integrate (and finds herself seeking casual sex with men while she is increasingly attracted to a blond woman who she works with); at the geographical north-south west-east divide where those in poorer countries pay an environmental price for the west's excesses; at the lingering impact of colonialism; at those who traffic the immigrants to France, selling them a passport and a cover story in return for money and a share of their future earnings; and even at the asylum seekers themselves, the "repellent jellyfish".
And this drives her to the Baudelairian response which opens the story - approached by a particularly persistent asylum seeker on the Metro she strikes him with a wine bottle. The novel is then her looking back on what drove her to this point from her custody cell and the police interrogation room.
A short but powerful work - and one that isn't afraid to push the boundaries of taste with our self-loathing narrator lashing out in all directions.
The publisher
This is the 22nd book from the wonderful publisher Les Fugitives, who specialise in Francophone literature. My reviews of all of their books can be found on my dedicated shelf.
The central tenets of our list include, but are not limited to:
- Women’s voices,
- A focus on short works, which we believe make for an ideal introduction to an author’s oeuvre,
- The exploration of trans-genre and non-linear narratives, following in the footsteps of the Modernists,
- A particular affinity for narratives concerned with cinema, the visual arts and music.
August 4, 2023
An intense monologue is unleashed as woman lies in a Paris police cell after violently assaulting a refugee on the metro. She herself is an immigrant working as a translator for asylum claimants, a role that has forced her to carry an inordinate amount of anger, pain and guilt. Poetic and compulsive, this is a very powerful little book.
Longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2023/08/04/im...
Longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2023/08/04/im...
July 10, 2023
My thanks to Deep Vellum Publishing for a review copy of this book via Edelweiss.
Down with the Poor is a powerful, lyrical and at times raw account exploring the lives of refugees— asylum seekers in France and their interactions with the system, as also the narrator’s personal dilemmas and struggles. Originally published in French in 2011 by Shumona Sinha, Indian-born but a naturalised French citizen, this translation by Chicago-based Teresa Lavender Fagan is published by Deep Vellum.
Our unnamed narrator (much is unnamed in the book, whether places or people, with only a few identified by name; yet the descriptions make it easy enough to grasp what or who is being spoken of) lives in Paris, working as an interpreter, translating the stories of various (and endless) asylum seekers from the country she is originally from, though she feels (and believes others would recognise) her distance from them—class, status and much else. Her account is told to us over the course of a night—a night she is spending in police custody for she has just attacked one such person, an asylum seeker, with a wine bottle aboard the Paris metro. Recounting her experiences with all she’s heard and observed from the numerous stories she’s translated and her own life, she tries to reach (and thereby also explain to Monsieur K, the officer questioning her) what made her take such a step.
Exploring their stories, we witness the iniquitousness of the system itself, which seems willing to accommodate ‘political’ refugees but has no room for those suffering much more or whose condition is much worse due to poverty or climate change quite literary eating up their countries.
Human rights do not mean the right to escape poverty. In any case, you do not have the right to utter the word poverty. … Neither poverty nor avenging nature that had devastated their land could justify their exile, their mad hope for survival.
Neither the poor (nor indeed the well off) like poverty but the system has no room for those that seek to escape it. The narrator herself feels repulsed by it, seeking always to distance herself from these countrymen of hers and their many failings, ashamed at times of their untruths. But some of these, the very stories they tell—sounding much the same
There were so many of them and they were all so alike that I had the impression that I was always encountering the same man.
—clearly fabricated, are so, most likely as the result of this very system where the truth (poverty, the attempt to escape it, seek a ‘better’ life) will get them nowhere. Elaborate yarns of persecution, none of which ring true on the slightest examination, are thus woven, ‘sold’ to them by those who have brought them to work, almost as slaves, here in this new land where living conditions for them are no better. [On an aside, one can’t but wonder how the conditions they end up in can qualify as a ‘better’ life].
Amidst this is her own role as interpreter, having to be the voice (as it were) of people who have very different mores than herself (some unable to accept that they must talk to and put their case across to women), the obvious lies in whose accounts she must put across but also the dilemmas that her and others in her role must go through, some wanting to help their countrymen no matter what; being harangued by lawyers, even the asylum seekers themselves; and the pressures in a way of the very words she is putting across
When I said the words, those of my native language, they turned awkwardly in my mouth, paralyzed my tongue, echoed in my head, hammered in my brain like the wrong notes on a wobbly piano. It was a rope bridge, thin, quivering, between the petitioners and me.
Alongside these lives and the system that is impacting on her, is her own life and the dilemmas it throws up from her disconnect with her country and its people, to her seemingly fraught relationship with her parents, or struggles to even form relationships (plenty of meaningless, casual flings with men in the city while grappling with her feelings for her coworker Lucia).
This is a complex, intense and quite beautifully written indictment of the absurdities of the asylum systems of so-called ‘human-rights respecting’ countries which end up forcing applicants into lives and paths far from the dignity (and other noble ideals of humanness) that a rights-protective space ought to enable (even if one can understand that there are practical aspects of accommodation to be taken account of). The narrator and the officers she works with may be ecstatic when they come across the rare applicant who tells the truth in the first instance, but what does that really achieve.
The stories she hears, the experiences she witnesses evoke many reactions in her, among them anger causing her to want to scream, to lash out, to feel pity (sometimes) but also repulsion. But once again, this is one of those stories which leaves us with no real ray of hope—a state of affairs which will continue much the same, and to what end?
The other part of the story, her personal life, especially the troubled relationship or rather the disconnect from family and country was something that felt lacked sufficient explanation. While her rage against the state of things (with her work amongst the refugees) would seem to account for some of her actions, I still felt I was left with a lot of whys.
But a book well worth reading, and in which the translator has captured both the language and sentiment quite beautifully.
4.25 stars
Down with the Poor is a powerful, lyrical and at times raw account exploring the lives of refugees— asylum seekers in France and their interactions with the system, as also the narrator’s personal dilemmas and struggles. Originally published in French in 2011 by Shumona Sinha, Indian-born but a naturalised French citizen, this translation by Chicago-based Teresa Lavender Fagan is published by Deep Vellum.
Our unnamed narrator (much is unnamed in the book, whether places or people, with only a few identified by name; yet the descriptions make it easy enough to grasp what or who is being spoken of) lives in Paris, working as an interpreter, translating the stories of various (and endless) asylum seekers from the country she is originally from, though she feels (and believes others would recognise) her distance from them—class, status and much else. Her account is told to us over the course of a night—a night she is spending in police custody for she has just attacked one such person, an asylum seeker, with a wine bottle aboard the Paris metro. Recounting her experiences with all she’s heard and observed from the numerous stories she’s translated and her own life, she tries to reach (and thereby also explain to Monsieur K, the officer questioning her) what made her take such a step.
Exploring their stories, we witness the iniquitousness of the system itself, which seems willing to accommodate ‘political’ refugees but has no room for those suffering much more or whose condition is much worse due to poverty or climate change quite literary eating up their countries.
Human rights do not mean the right to escape poverty. In any case, you do not have the right to utter the word poverty. … Neither poverty nor avenging nature that had devastated their land could justify their exile, their mad hope for survival.
Neither the poor (nor indeed the well off) like poverty but the system has no room for those that seek to escape it. The narrator herself feels repulsed by it, seeking always to distance herself from these countrymen of hers and their many failings, ashamed at times of their untruths. But some of these, the very stories they tell—sounding much the same
There were so many of them and they were all so alike that I had the impression that I was always encountering the same man.
—clearly fabricated, are so, most likely as the result of this very system where the truth (poverty, the attempt to escape it, seek a ‘better’ life) will get them nowhere. Elaborate yarns of persecution, none of which ring true on the slightest examination, are thus woven, ‘sold’ to them by those who have brought them to work, almost as slaves, here in this new land where living conditions for them are no better. [On an aside, one can’t but wonder how the conditions they end up in can qualify as a ‘better’ life].
Amidst this is her own role as interpreter, having to be the voice (as it were) of people who have very different mores than herself (some unable to accept that they must talk to and put their case across to women), the obvious lies in whose accounts she must put across but also the dilemmas that her and others in her role must go through, some wanting to help their countrymen no matter what; being harangued by lawyers, even the asylum seekers themselves; and the pressures in a way of the very words she is putting across
When I said the words, those of my native language, they turned awkwardly in my mouth, paralyzed my tongue, echoed in my head, hammered in my brain like the wrong notes on a wobbly piano. It was a rope bridge, thin, quivering, between the petitioners and me.
Alongside these lives and the system that is impacting on her, is her own life and the dilemmas it throws up from her disconnect with her country and its people, to her seemingly fraught relationship with her parents, or struggles to even form relationships (plenty of meaningless, casual flings with men in the city while grappling with her feelings for her coworker Lucia).
This is a complex, intense and quite beautifully written indictment of the absurdities of the asylum systems of so-called ‘human-rights respecting’ countries which end up forcing applicants into lives and paths far from the dignity (and other noble ideals of humanness) that a rights-protective space ought to enable (even if one can understand that there are practical aspects of accommodation to be taken account of). The narrator and the officers she works with may be ecstatic when they come across the rare applicant who tells the truth in the first instance, but what does that really achieve.
The stories she hears, the experiences she witnesses evoke many reactions in her, among them anger causing her to want to scream, to lash out, to feel pity (sometimes) but also repulsion. But once again, this is one of those stories which leaves us with no real ray of hope—a state of affairs which will continue much the same, and to what end?
The other part of the story, her personal life, especially the troubled relationship or rather the disconnect from family and country was something that felt lacked sufficient explanation. While her rage against the state of things (with her work amongst the refugees) would seem to account for some of her actions, I still felt I was left with a lot of whys.
But a book well worth reading, and in which the translator has captured both the language and sentiment quite beautifully.
4.25 stars
March 20, 2023
This could’ve and should’ve been incredible but the overly pretentious, convoluted sentences that spanned entire pages lost the weight of the words and my attention. When that language was ignored, it was wonderful, but there was no reason for the author to try so hard to use every metaphor under the sun multiple times.
August 15, 2019
Also ich weiß nicht. Zwischendurch war ich gut drin, ich hatte den Schreibstil verstanden und wusste, worauf die Autorin hinaus wollte. Aber gegen Ende war ich wieder restlos verwirrt. Oder überfordert? Ich weiß es nicht genau.
January 9, 2023
A deeply uncomfortable read, exquisitely written, perhaps overly so. I think it has a lot to say about the way the immigration and asylum system completely dehumanises people. I'm not sure it quite managed to say it; sometimes the purple prose spoke over itself.
June 15, 2019
Overloaded in language and that make the substance hardly discernible. A pity.
January 11, 2025
Die Sprachgewandtheit hat mich sehr beeindruckt. Die Thematik der Asylbewerbung ist aufwühlend. Die Frust über das System seitens der Erzählerin gibt eine Rahmung von Aussichtslosigkeit, Wut, Schwarzhumorigkeit und Aggression, die manchmal für mich nur schwer ertragbar war.
"Der Körper widerlegt das, was die Worte herbeireden. Ich wusste nicht mehr, wo der Körper aufhörte und die Sprache begann. Ich wusste nicht mehr, wo Grenzen und Stacheldraht begannen und das Land aufhörte."
"Der Körper widerlegt das, was die Worte herbeireden. Ich wusste nicht mehr, wo der Körper aufhörte und die Sprache begann. Ich wusste nicht mehr, wo Grenzen und Stacheldraht begannen und das Land aufhörte."
November 10, 2023
Sheesh! Breathtaking work.
November 19, 2022
I listened to their stories composed of choppy, cut-off, expectorated sentences. They memorized them and regurgitated them in front of the computer screen. Human rights do not mean the right to escape poverty. In any case, you didn't have the right to utter the word poverty. You needed a more noble reason, one that would justify political asylum. Neither poverty nor avenging nature that had devastated their land could justify their exile, their mad hope for survival. No law allowed them to enter here in this European country if they didn't have political, or even religious reasons, if they didn't demonstrate the serious consequences of persecution. So they had to hide, forget, unlearn the truth and invent another one: the tales of migrating peoples; with broken wings, filthy, stinking feathers; with dreams as sad as the rags on their backs.
This book was originally published in 2011 by Shimona Sinha, born in West Bengal but naturalised in France having moved there in 2001 (aged 28) and who writes in French (with which she says she has a better literary relationship). In France she worked as first a teacher and then an interpreter within the asylum system and it is that experience on which she draws to write the novel (with a Bengali born first person narrator doing the same job) – with the novel ultimately costing her that job as OFPRA (the French immigration authority) not appreciating her critique of all aspects of the system (including the asylum seekers and those who aid them).
It is translated from the French by Teresa Lavender Fagan and was published by the ever excellent Les Fugitives in 2022.
The original book shared a title with Baudelaire’s provocative 1869 prose poem “Assommons les pauvres” (http://baudelairepoems.blogspot.com/2...) which as in the link provided is commonly translated as “Let’s beat up the poor” – and which features the poet beating a beggar seemingly to provoke a reaction. An LRB article by Christopher Prendergast says of the poem (which others have seen as related to Marx’s class struggle)
In many ways, the poem is deeply resistant to interpretation, and is meant to be. The surface of demonic hysteria and sadomasochism is a pokerfaced mask, concealing a range of provocative ironies. Against the background of the spectacular collapse of ideologies of well-meaning benevolence in the insurrections of 1848, Baudelaire’s poem probes all the weak points of the philanthropic: the egoism in altruism (‘I am such a nice person’); the bad faith of charitable giving as alibi, letting people off the hook of finding real solutions to inequality; the malicious thought that a relation of equality established through the exchange of violence is preferable to the humiliating servitude of supplicant beggardom, the smile, the deference, the politeness, without which the needy rarely accede to the status of deserving.
And a similar idea informs the book – which is effectively told by the narrator looking back on her time sitting in on asylum interviews and court cases (typically with Bangladeshis) as she herself faces an interview and potential charge having struck an asylum seeker (who follows her on the Metro while she is on the way to a potential date with a female colleague) with a wine bottle.
Life is a monologue. Even when you think you're making conversation, only a stroke of luck allows two monologues to intersect; perhaps taken by sur-prise, they halt in front of each other. In the offices questions and answers intersected but remained isolated. The men stuck to their monologues. The women officers shot question arrows almost automatically, lethargically and without a target. A few rudimentary questions later, the tension would rise among us. The tension sometimes rose so high that, long after having completed an interview, everything trembled deep inside me, throbbed like the engine of an idling car
The same rage that drove this response drives the book as she despairs at (among other things): the North/South divide in climate change – particularly how the excesses of the West have exacerbated catastrophic flooding in Bangladesh – something made worse by the history of colonialism; the unfeeling nature of the asylum system and particularly the way in which it forces those seeking asylum (and the lawyers who help them) to distort or even invent stories of persecutions which tick the right boxes (for example religious or political persecution); her often tricky relationship with those parties as they rail at her both for translating to them the questions of the immigration officers and for, in their eyes, failing to translate their responses in a convincing enough fashion or not correcting their errors; the people traffickers and the way in which they exploit the asylum seekers both before and after transporting them; the way in which the seekers (used to a patriarchal society) reject her superior status in France.
I found this overall a powerfully effective book.
It is at times unbearably intense and of course deliberately ambiguous and provocative like the eponymous poem. However it is also one struck through with imagery and particularly strong when describing the contrast between the different areas of Paris for example (With I have to say the RER description functioning in an almost Proustian way for me to convey the outkirts of the City)
The offices where the raggedy petitioners came to plead their cases, dragging their feet, holding babies, but usually alone, were located in barren areas, beyond the city limits. Where the wind picked up. The wind picked up and died down and picked up again. Dust flew and spun around. The battlefield flared up. The sound of the RER, its corroded screeching, steel against steel, its crisscrossing rails stretching into the horizon, to even more barren zones, the sun bursting onto the tracks, factories rising up against the white sky.
Or this clever contrast
Coming out of the metro, at an intersection, I was lost. No landmark. Around the square there were shabby reproductions of the same cheap and hideous merchandise. …… . The entire neighborhood was an open-air bazaar, an open garbage bin …. The merchants had spread out their wares everywhere, overflowing onto the sidewalks, into the middle of the street, as if the many shops around the square weren't enough. Clothing, bags, suitcases, shoes, and a pile of shapeless objects ….. It was a ghetto. Another country. The one I had managed to leave behind. It was impossible to believe there was still a luminous city not very far from here. The metro had brought me to the end of the tunnel at the edge of the world into this land of rubbish overrun by outcast jellyfish ………………… . If I could have, I would have turned around, taken the first metro and returned to my own neighborhood, where the smell of good baguettes blended with that of yellowed books placed in boxes in front of shop windows. There on the streets dogs walk with their owners, the café owner jokes with the couple of daily customers, brown-and-green cast-iron tables and chairs lean on the slope of the sidewalk, red-and-white checkered tablecloths flutter in the breeze. I simply wanted to erase my character from this ghetto cartoon.
Highly recommended.
January 15, 2023
I don't often read books without any prior knowledge of them, as my 'to read' list is already hundreds of books long, however on a visit to Bath I spotted this novel on a table of translated works at Topping & Company (a fantastic bookshop!) and picked it up on a whim. I'm so glad I did, as this was a really fascinating insight into an area that I hadn't previously given much thought. We follow our protagonist who is an interpreter for asylum seekers in Paris, acting as the bridge between the French agency officials and those desperately seeking asylum. We see her wrestle with her own identity as a foreigner in her chosen home and the discontent, self-alienation and rage that ultimately leads her to assault one of the refugees on the metro.
My only criticism of Down with the Poor! was that the writing style was often excessive in its use of language, imagery and metaphor, which I think at times obscured rather than elucidated the message at hand. Despite this it was still a unique and engaging read that boldly levelled criticism on all sides; at our protagonist, at the system and at the asylum seekers themselves.
My only criticism of Down with the Poor! was that the writing style was often excessive in its use of language, imagery and metaphor, which I think at times obscured rather than elucidated the message at hand. Despite this it was still a unique and engaging read that boldly levelled criticism on all sides; at our protagonist, at the system and at the asylum seekers themselves.
August 11, 2020
Ein Buch das sehr drastisch die Widersprüchlichkeit von Fluchtbiographien zeigt und dabei auch die postkoloniale Existenz in der Diaspora behandelt, den doppelten Boden der Übersetzung und die absolute Unmenschlichkeit eines Systems, das zur Flucht zwingt - diesen Zwang aber dann nicht anerkennen will. 3,5 Sterne
June 9, 2024
A really interesting look into how language and identity intermingle. I really love how Sinha builds metaphors on top of metaphors to the point of making it hard to understand what is happening vs. what is abstraction. It almost reminds me of the way Tony Burgess writes and boy do I love everything he writes
May 10, 2023
Moving but difficult. It's honest but a little self loathing.
June 27, 2017
Meine Gedanken bei 37%:"This book proves to be a challenge for me. The protagonist is neither likable nor coherent, really. Also I don't know what to make of the way in which the refugees are protrayed."
Bei 60 %: Mühsam, mühsam! Kein leichtes Buch. Und ich finde es auch nicht gut. Aber ich möchte es weiter lesen, weil es durchaus gut besprochen wurde und irgendwie hoffe ich, es wird noch..."
Bei 75%: Die Rezensenten aus FAZ und Zeit sehen das Buch ziemlich anders als ich - aber die Gefahr, die es beinhaltet, sieht inzwischen selbst die Autorin, wie zu lesen ist. Denn man kann ihre Kritik am System auch als Kritik an den Menschen, den Betroffenen verstehen. So hat sie es aber nicht gedacht und gemeint. Vielmehr kritisiert und offenbart sie das kranke System, dass die Menschen zur Lüge geradezu zwingt."
Mir fiel es schwer, das Buch zu Ende zu lesen. Ich kann die guten Rezensionen aus z.B. der Zeit und der FAZ nachvollziehen. Das machte es für mich aber nicht leichter. Es ist kein Buch, was man mal eben so lesen kann. Es fordert heraus, es verursacht schlechte Gefühle. Ich musste es in kleine Häppchen einteilen und habe fast zwei Wochen für die gut hundert Seiten gebraucht. Also was macht das Buch? Es offenbart das furchtbare System, was Menschen dazu anstiftet, über ihre Geschichte zu lügen, weil ihre wirkliche Geschichte nicht dramatisch genug klingt oder in die vorgegebenen Muster hinein passt. Es führt dazu, dass man sich auf sein Gefühl nicht mehr verlassen kann. Es führt wohl auch dazu, dass Menschen, die in ihm arbeiten, überall nur noch Lügen und Begehrlichkeiten sehen.
Die Menschen, die über Asylanträge zu entscheiden haben, stumpfen ab, werden zynisch oder gehen kaputt. Die Menschen, deren Anträge abgelehnt werden, verzweifeln, werden zynisch oder gehen kaputt.
Ich hätte das Buch ohne die Hilfe durch die Rezensenten aus den oben genannten Qualitätszeitungen nicht weiter lesen können.Für mich nicht wirklich ein Roman . Denn der erzählerische Zusammenhang ist sporadisch, vieles ähnelt eher eine Hasstirade oder einem Gedankensalat. Identifikationsmöglichkeiten als Leser/in? Fehlanzeige.
Definitiv ein Buch, das zum Denken anregt, zur Auseinandersetzung.
Bei 60 %: Mühsam, mühsam! Kein leichtes Buch. Und ich finde es auch nicht gut. Aber ich möchte es weiter lesen, weil es durchaus gut besprochen wurde und irgendwie hoffe ich, es wird noch..."
Bei 75%: Die Rezensenten aus FAZ und Zeit sehen das Buch ziemlich anders als ich - aber die Gefahr, die es beinhaltet, sieht inzwischen selbst die Autorin, wie zu lesen ist. Denn man kann ihre Kritik am System auch als Kritik an den Menschen, den Betroffenen verstehen. So hat sie es aber nicht gedacht und gemeint. Vielmehr kritisiert und offenbart sie das kranke System, dass die Menschen zur Lüge geradezu zwingt."
Mir fiel es schwer, das Buch zu Ende zu lesen. Ich kann die guten Rezensionen aus z.B. der Zeit und der FAZ nachvollziehen. Das machte es für mich aber nicht leichter. Es ist kein Buch, was man mal eben so lesen kann. Es fordert heraus, es verursacht schlechte Gefühle. Ich musste es in kleine Häppchen einteilen und habe fast zwei Wochen für die gut hundert Seiten gebraucht. Also was macht das Buch? Es offenbart das furchtbare System, was Menschen dazu anstiftet, über ihre Geschichte zu lügen, weil ihre wirkliche Geschichte nicht dramatisch genug klingt oder in die vorgegebenen Muster hinein passt. Es führt dazu, dass man sich auf sein Gefühl nicht mehr verlassen kann. Es führt wohl auch dazu, dass Menschen, die in ihm arbeiten, überall nur noch Lügen und Begehrlichkeiten sehen.
Die Menschen, die über Asylanträge zu entscheiden haben, stumpfen ab, werden zynisch oder gehen kaputt. Die Menschen, deren Anträge abgelehnt werden, verzweifeln, werden zynisch oder gehen kaputt.
Ich hätte das Buch ohne die Hilfe durch die Rezensenten aus den oben genannten Qualitätszeitungen nicht weiter lesen können.Für mich nicht wirklich ein Roman . Denn der erzählerische Zusammenhang ist sporadisch, vieles ähnelt eher eine Hasstirade oder einem Gedankensalat. Identifikationsmöglichkeiten als Leser/in? Fehlanzeige.
Definitiv ein Buch, das zum Denken anregt, zur Auseinandersetzung.
May 17, 2016
Ein kurzer Roman voller geballter Energie! Eine Bengalin entwickelt bei ihrer Tätigkeit als Dolmetscherin bei der französischen Ausländerbehörde einen Frust, der genährt ist vom Überfluss (und angesichts der systemimmanenten Lügen bald Überdruss) der immer gleichen Geschichten von Asylsuchenden und ihrer Stellung zwischen zwei Interessenslagen. Der Zugehörigkeitskonflikt und ihre Hilflosigkeit entladen sich schließlich in einer Aktion, die sie selbst in die Position der Verhörten bringt.
Die Autorin hat selbst auf einer solchen Behörde gearbeitet und als Folge dieser Romanveröffentlichung ihren Job da verloren hat. Die Trennung zwischen Autorin und Werk scheint hier keine Rolle gespielt zu haben. Und auch wenn Sinha heute das Buch "vorsichtiger" schreiben würde angesichts vieler Kriegsflüchtlinge, so ist es nicht weniger aufschlussreich als ein Aspekt der immer wieder aktuellen und so vielschichtigen Asylthematik.
Die Autorin hat selbst auf einer solchen Behörde gearbeitet und als Folge dieser Romanveröffentlichung ihren Job da verloren hat. Die Trennung zwischen Autorin und Werk scheint hier keine Rolle gespielt zu haben. Und auch wenn Sinha heute das Buch "vorsichtiger" schreiben würde angesichts vieler Kriegsflüchtlinge, so ist es nicht weniger aufschlussreich als ein Aspekt der immer wieder aktuellen und so vielschichtigen Asylthematik.
June 3, 2017
Das war ein sehr komplizierte Buch. Es ist ein Roman ohne Handlung und das einzige, was mir klar ist, ist, dass der Protagonist eine Dolmetscherin ist.
Romanzo veramente complicato, per fortuna che era breve. Privo di trama e probabilmente l'unica cosa che mi é chiara é che la protagonista, sul cui sesso nemmeno sono sicura, é una traduttrice/interprete.
Romanzo veramente complicato, per fortuna che era breve. Privo di trama e probabilmente l'unica cosa che mi é chiara é che la protagonista, sul cui sesso nemmeno sono sicura, é una traduttrice/interprete.
February 27, 2021
Mit diesem Buch bin ich – bis auf wenige Ausnahmen – einfach nicht warm geworden und habe es eher als problematisch wahrgenommen. Eine spannende Ausgangslage, aber die Entwicklung und v.a. die Erzählerin sind für mich oft unverständlich geblieben. Ein wütender Text.
January 16, 2020
Raw, beautiful and heart-wrenching.
May 20, 2023
Down with the Poor! by Shumona Sinha is a powerful and disturbing novel that highlights how, over time, we can become exactly what we believe ourselves not to be, and the role the society we live in plays a part in that transformation.
There are many books I suggest reading a slower, or at least taking breaks to let the ideas percolate a bit before moving on. Normally, this is exactly the type of book where I make such a suggestion. The writing is poetic but dense, with detailed descriptions and mental wrestling, but is a short book that can make for a quick read. I'm hesitant, however, to suggest spreading it out, mainly because I think the density and the constant rationalization of ugly behavior makes it one that needs to be read in one sitting. The reader needs, I think, to feel the full weight of what has happened, both the physical attack and the gradual deterioration of a person's humanity. That isn't to say this is a comfortable experience, it isn't, especially if you also reflect about how you have changed over time, and not always for the better.
I would recommend, however, taking the time to reread it at a more measured pace, giving yourself time every couple of chapters to relate the actions and thoughts in the novel to the world we live in, both the personal and public spheres. After experiencing the novel as a gut punch the first time, rereading with more reflective thought helps to give the reader more, and more impactful, takeaways. At least, it did for me.
I know that some readers absolutely hate to read things that upset them, and for them this will likely be a DNF. If, however, you're a reader who likes at least some books to be more than simply entertainment, you will find yourself carrying some of the ideas here with you after you put it down.
I know I am oversimplifying with my next assessment, but I do think it is a way to grasp the big picture. Namely, the things that are normalized in society, positive or negative, become internalized by the individuals in that society. That general statement includes the topics touched on in this book but is also applicable to any issue. The normalization might be because of the way judgements become institutionalized as facts, or simply because some ways of thinking have been given unwarranted placement in the world. We can even, as is evident in so many areas, become self-loathing without even being fully aware of it.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
There are many books I suggest reading a slower, or at least taking breaks to let the ideas percolate a bit before moving on. Normally, this is exactly the type of book where I make such a suggestion. The writing is poetic but dense, with detailed descriptions and mental wrestling, but is a short book that can make for a quick read. I'm hesitant, however, to suggest spreading it out, mainly because I think the density and the constant rationalization of ugly behavior makes it one that needs to be read in one sitting. The reader needs, I think, to feel the full weight of what has happened, both the physical attack and the gradual deterioration of a person's humanity. That isn't to say this is a comfortable experience, it isn't, especially if you also reflect about how you have changed over time, and not always for the better.
I would recommend, however, taking the time to reread it at a more measured pace, giving yourself time every couple of chapters to relate the actions and thoughts in the novel to the world we live in, both the personal and public spheres. After experiencing the novel as a gut punch the first time, rereading with more reflective thought helps to give the reader more, and more impactful, takeaways. At least, it did for me.
I know that some readers absolutely hate to read things that upset them, and for them this will likely be a DNF. If, however, you're a reader who likes at least some books to be more than simply entertainment, you will find yourself carrying some of the ideas here with you after you put it down.
I know I am oversimplifying with my next assessment, but I do think it is a way to grasp the big picture. Namely, the things that are normalized in society, positive or negative, become internalized by the individuals in that society. That general statement includes the topics touched on in this book but is also applicable to any issue. The normalization might be because of the way judgements become institutionalized as facts, or simply because some ways of thinking have been given unwarranted placement in the world. We can even, as is evident in so many areas, become self-loathing without even being fully aware of it.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
July 26, 2022
„Ich konnte nicht mehr unterscheiden zwischen der Wahrheit und den Lügen, die Spuren verwischen, Lügen, die blenden.“ (s.43)
Die Protagonistin ist Dolmetscherin bei der Asylbehörde. Täglich übersetzt sie das Jammern und die Lügen der Asylberwerber_innen.
Eines Tages schlägt sie einem Migranten eine Flasche über dem Kopf. Jetzt muss sie sich erklären warum eine ehemalige Asylbewerberinnen indischer Abstammung so etwas grauenhaftes tun soll.
Für die Beamten bleibt sie als Migrantin fremd, aber auch ihren Landsleuten bleibt sie fremd - als eine die es geschafft hat.
Dieses kleine Büchlein hat insgesamt 127 Seiten. Meine Geduld reichte bis Seite 104. Anfangs schien ich mich in die Geschichte hineinzudenken, doch irgendwann verlor ich den Faden beim Lesen und wusste nicht, um was es genau geht.
Klar wurde mir nur, dass die Protagonistin vom System genervt ist, aber sie Teil vom System wurde. Dies führte dazu, dass sie das Gedicht von Charles Baudelaire ‚erschlagt die Armen!‘ wörtlich nahm.
Leider musste ich dieses Buch abbrechen, weil ich mich eher gequält habe als vergnügt. Aber vielleicht habe ich nur die Geschichte nicht gerafft.
Von mir gibt es keine Leseempfehlung, aber dafür 1/5 Sterne.
„Wahrheit hat etwas mit Ästhetik zu tun.
Das Hässliche, Vulgäre, Ungeschickte und Ungehobeite erscheint nicht wahr. Man lügt aus Lust an der Übertreibung. Um einen grundsätzlichen Mangel zu überbrücken.“ (s.82)
Die Protagonistin ist Dolmetscherin bei der Asylbehörde. Täglich übersetzt sie das Jammern und die Lügen der Asylberwerber_innen.
Eines Tages schlägt sie einem Migranten eine Flasche über dem Kopf. Jetzt muss sie sich erklären warum eine ehemalige Asylbewerberinnen indischer Abstammung so etwas grauenhaftes tun soll.
Für die Beamten bleibt sie als Migrantin fremd, aber auch ihren Landsleuten bleibt sie fremd - als eine die es geschafft hat.
Dieses kleine Büchlein hat insgesamt 127 Seiten. Meine Geduld reichte bis Seite 104. Anfangs schien ich mich in die Geschichte hineinzudenken, doch irgendwann verlor ich den Faden beim Lesen und wusste nicht, um was es genau geht.
Klar wurde mir nur, dass die Protagonistin vom System genervt ist, aber sie Teil vom System wurde. Dies führte dazu, dass sie das Gedicht von Charles Baudelaire ‚erschlagt die Armen!‘ wörtlich nahm.
Leider musste ich dieses Buch abbrechen, weil ich mich eher gequält habe als vergnügt. Aber vielleicht habe ich nur die Geschichte nicht gerafft.
Von mir gibt es keine Leseempfehlung, aber dafür 1/5 Sterne.
„Wahrheit hat etwas mit Ästhetik zu tun.
Das Hässliche, Vulgäre, Ungeschickte und Ungehobeite erscheint nicht wahr. Man lügt aus Lust an der Übertreibung. Um einen grundsätzlichen Mangel zu überbrücken.“ (s.82)
February 10, 2024
A really excellent novella (translated from French) about a woman working as an interpreter for asylum seekers reckoning with the emotions that led her to attack a man on the metro in Paris. The book is bubbling with anger, fraught with discussions of otherness, the broken legal institutions around immigration, cultural clashes, language barriers, and economic disparity in a globalized world. As the title suggests, the main character deals with people whose only crime is poverty, who move to Europe in search of a more prosperous life. However, despite being an immigrant herself, the main character is surprisingly unsympathetic. Rather, she is disgusted by her work and the men she interprets for. Unflinchingly honest and entirely too prescient as more and more countries (including France) continue to restrict their immigration laws. It's quick and impactful, something I think would make for a really good book club discussion. Some quotes I'll highlight are:
"Life is a public swimming pool. Dirty and full of intruders."
"You would be wrong if you thought the rich like perpetuating poverty. That's not the case. They prefer seeing the world evolve, not too much ugliness, not too sad, above all, no dying like an abandoned dog on taking their last breath on their doorstep."
"But after all, who am I to talk about them? I am stealing their stories. I sublimate them in poverty and ugliness. I am a narco-pirate. I am trying to get high."
"Life is a public swimming pool. Dirty and full of intruders."
"You would be wrong if you thought the rich like perpetuating poverty. That's not the case. They prefer seeing the world evolve, not too much ugliness, not too sad, above all, no dying like an abandoned dog on taking their last breath on their doorstep."
"But after all, who am I to talk about them? I am stealing their stories. I sublimate them in poverty and ugliness. I am a narco-pirate. I am trying to get high."
February 18, 2024
I picked this up after seeing Sinha speak at Jaipur Lit Fest (which is amaaaaaazing for anyone keen on spending a week in India with people who love writing, politics, and other creative pursuits — I assume many on Goodreads.)
Anyway, I wanted to like this book more than I did. The premise and underlying content are great, but as others here have pointed out, Sinha's writing is *so* overwrought with metaphor (at times one, or more, per every little sentence) and other over-the-top flourishes, I found myself struggling at times to understand and feel the main character's emotions and actions — which are indeed, at heart, compelling. There were some beautiful little sentences and passages for me, but many more parts of the book where I wanted to pick up a red pen and cut or compress every three sentences out of four.
All that said, maybe it works better in the original French — but I can't imagine loving this without dramatically simplified language, and my guess is the original wouldn't change that much.
Anyway, I wanted to like this book more than I did. The premise and underlying content are great, but as others here have pointed out, Sinha's writing is *so* overwrought with metaphor (at times one, or more, per every little sentence) and other over-the-top flourishes, I found myself struggling at times to understand and feel the main character's emotions and actions — which are indeed, at heart, compelling. There were some beautiful little sentences and passages for me, but many more parts of the book where I wanted to pick up a red pen and cut or compress every three sentences out of four.
All that said, maybe it works better in the original French — but I can't imagine loving this without dramatically simplified language, and my guess is the original wouldn't change that much.
November 19, 2023
La protagoniste est traductrice, elle fait le passage entre les réfugiés, et la police. Elle entend chaque jours les mêmes récits, construits de toute pièce. Elle devient aliéné de ces gens, qu'elle voulait initialement aidé, et se fond dans la masse de ses collègues policiers. Un jour, saisie par la colère, elle assomme un homme, un mendiant qui ressemble à tous ceux qu'elle croise au poste de police. Le récit retrace comment elle en est arrivé là. L'autrice est également poète, et ça se sent à la lecture, c'est un très beau texte.
May 31, 2024
4.5/5. a haunting and deeply poignant exploration of identity, colonialism and the penetrating nature of language. sinha writes with a violent honesty that matches the themes of her work, but also pairs this with a lyrical tone that makes her points even more piercing. the narrator’s often fragile mental state carries the work forwards in a frantic manner that suffocates us as the reader - and this is absolutely perfect for this book. excellently stirs emotions whilst providing insight into the tragedy of our world.
April 10, 2019
Das Buch hätte ich nach ein paar Seiten weggelegt, wenn es nicht für eine Challenge gewesen wäre.
Ich fand die Sprache bemüht gekünstelt und dem Gedankenfluss konnte ich nicht folgen.
Das ein oder andere Kapitel war nett, aber ich wollte auch nur noch wissen, warum sie jetzt zugeschlagen hat - und das weiß ich immer noch nicht so wirklich.
Außer, dass sie schon ziemlich düstere Gedanken hatte...
Ich fand die Sprache bemüht gekünstelt und dem Gedankenfluss konnte ich nicht folgen.
Das ein oder andere Kapitel war nett, aber ich wollte auch nur noch wissen, warum sie jetzt zugeschlagen hat - und das weiß ich immer noch nicht so wirklich.
Außer, dass sie schon ziemlich düstere Gedanken hatte...
May 30, 2024
2.5. I don't get what others are seeing here. Maybe I'm not in the right headspace atm. A heavily institutionalised, almost heartless woman who works as an interpreter for asylum seekers is improsoned for assaulting a refugee. I get that she's meant to be a product of the system, but this didn't come through in the text and I ended up just intensely disliking her (in the parts where I could work out what was even going on).
March 29, 2024
"Depuis longtemps je n'étais pas allée aussi loin au fond de moi, près de mes sous-sols, près de mes racines. Au fond de nous, il y a des puits noirs, des oubliettes, des impasses. Au fond de nous, il y a une maison hantée, un pays déserté, une terre entre les langues de la baie. Oubliables. Oubliés le lendemain." (Sinha, 2011: 154)
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