n 1995, when promoting Total Khéops(Europa Books) Jean-Claude Izzo said: "Marseille is the only city on earth where you can show up for the very first time, penniless and with just a suitcase and yet claim: I am home". 25 years later, Hadrien Bels's debut novel, Cinq dans tes yeux, comes as a scathing refutation of this remark.

Feelings, artists, and their works reach out to each other across the centuries in this enchanting first novel by Maud Simonnot.

Men might die younger, and yet, they do live longer” Chloe Deleaume could have made this quote by Camille Laurens her own (Who You Think I Am, Other Press). This flagrant injustice fuels the novel with a combative energy, sustained by an 80s rock/pop soundtrack. But Le Coeur synthétique refuses to give into easy melancolia.

After The Little Communist Who Never Smiled (Seven Stories Press, Actes Sud) and Mercy Mary Patty (Actes Sud), Lola Lafon continues her exploration of the psyches of young girls--their fragility, their resilience--with Chavirer. Just like Nadia Comaneci and Patty Hearst, Chloé is a young girl whose destiny bears witness to the violence inflicted on women in our societies. In

Ananda Devi, a remarkable and unique Mauritian author, has long been an extraordinary voice for those left on the margins of society: minorities, the elderly, the poor. Her latest novel, The Living Days just out with Feminist Press, in an excellent translation by Jeffrey Zuckerman is no exception.