Jun 01 2008
Le Soleil des Scorta
I’ve just finished reading this French novel by Laurent Gaudé and it’s the first French novel I’ve read for about 17 years! I had my reservations about reading it when it was lent to me by my French teacher as I really thought I would struggle with it and not get through it. However, I persevered, helped by the fact that each chapter is quite short. OK, I didn’t understand every word in the book, but found it relatively easy to follow the plot.
It’s a story about 5 generations of an Italian family living in Puglia from 19th century up to the 1980s and how each generation copes with living in one of the poorest parts of Italy. It’s not a fast paced novel and probably not the sort of novel I’d normally read (I like a good thriller, something I can escape into), but I enjoyed the story nonetheless, more so because I read it in French!
The novel won the Prix Goncourt in 2004 (a French literary prize), so was written quite recently.
