Free Day (New York Review Books Classics): Inès Cagnati - Softcover

Ines Cagnati

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1681373580 ISBN 13: 9781681373584

Publisher: The New York Review of Books, Inc, 2019

Synopsis

A haunting and powerful portrait of a young French girl, and her desire to escape the world in which she is born, without losing her identity

In the marshy, misty countryside of southwestern France, fourteen-year-old Galla rides her battered bicycle from the private Catholic high school she attends on scholarship to the rocky, barren farm where her family lives. It's a journey she makes every two weeks, forty miles round trip, traveling between opposite poles of ambition and guilt, school and home. Galla's loving, overwhelmed, incompetent mother doesn't want her to go to school; she wants her to stay at home, where Galla can look after her neglected little sisters, defuse her father's brutal rages, and help with the chores. What does this dutiful daughter owe her family, and what does she owe herself? In Inès Cagnati's haunting, emotionally and visually powerful novel Free Day, which won France's Prix Roger Nimier in 1973, Galla makes an extra journey on a frigid winter Saturday to surprise her mother. As she anticipates their reunion, stopping often to pry caked, gelid mud off her bicycle wheels, she mentally retraces the crooked path of her family's past and the more recent map of her school life as a poor but proud student. Galla's rich, dense interior monologue blends with the landscape around her, building a powerful portrait of a girl who yearns to liberate herself from the circumstances that confine her, without losing their ties to her heart.

About this title

About the Author

Inès Cagnati (1937-2007) was a French novelist. From a family of Italian immigrants, she grew up in a rural region in southwest France where her parents were farmers. After studying literature, she passed the French national exam to become a teacher. Her childhood in a rural setting as well as her struggle to integrate into society strongly influenced her work. In one way or another, all four of her novels explore these themes.

Liesl Schillinger is a literary critic, writer, and translator, and teaches journalism and criticism at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Her articles, reviews, and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Washington Post, and other publications. She has translated novels from the French and the German for Penguin Classics, Viking, and New York Review Books, and is the author of Wordbirds: An Irreverent Lexicon for the 21st Century. In 2017 she was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters of France.

From the Back Cover

In the marshy, misty countryside of southwestern France, fourteen-year-old Galla rides her battered bicycle from the private Catholic high school she attends on scholarship to the rocky, barren farm where her family lives. It's a journey she makes every two weeks, forty miles round trip, traveling between opposite poles of ambition and guilt, school and home. Galla's loving, overwhelmed, incompetent mother doesn't want her to go to school; she wants her to stay at home, where Galla can look after her neglected little sisters, defuse her father's brutal rages, and help with the chores. What does this dutiful daughter owe her family, and what does she owe herself? In Inès Cagnati's haunting, emotionally and visually powerful novel Free Day, which won France's Prix Roger Nimier in 1973, Galla makes an extra journey on a frigid winter Saturday to surprise her mother. As she anticipates their reunion, stopping often to pry caked, gelid mud off her bicycle wheels, she mentally retraces the crooked path of her family's past and the more recent map of her school life as a poor but proud student. Galla's rich, dense interior monologue blends with the landscape around her, building a powerful portrait of a girl who yearns to liberate herself from the circumstances that confine her, without losing their ties to her heart.

Edition details

• Publisher: The New York Review of Books, Inc
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1681373580
• ISBN 13: 9781681373584
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 214