“What is monstrous is normal”… a line Céline Lapertot would often write, as she was growing up, without knowing that this litany would become the underlying theme of an account. Yes, what is monstrous is normal, for a young creature whose gaze becomes accustomed to the cracks in the white walls and the smell of urine in the corridors of buildings. Better to laugh than to cry about it, as the popular adage goes, hardly aware of its heritage. Laugh at the man who is bringing us up, look deep within ourselves for the respect we owe him, but laugh – a rictus that we’ll never wipe away – to forget that we would like to kick him hard in the back of the neck.

With three novels, all published by Editions Viviane Hamy, What My Silence Wrote (2014), The Women who Dance under Bombs (2016) Don’t Choose Blood over Water (2018) Céline Lapertot, a young teacher from Strasbourg who is passionate about her work, has entered the stage as a writer of contemporary French literature.

“Céline Lapertot excels in the art of working on her reader […]. Her prowess consists of driving forward the narrative, not with action but with feelings, values, and emotional states that are endlessly kneaded together, merged and intertwined”. Estelle Lenartowicz, Lire.