Divided along so many social fault lines, a city in the west of France is a tinderbox of anger and passion.
As the tension grows, things go badly wrong as a cop is killed and a terror cell is scattered across the city. A school on the deprived side of the city is caught up in the turmoil as students, their teacher and a visiting children’s author are locked down.
Making his first appearance in an English translation, Jérôme Leroy gives us a subtle and sardonic perspective on the shifts taking place in politics and society in this disturbing novella.
Little Rebel by Jérôme Leroy was published on 1 July 2021 by Corylus Books and is translated by Graham H Roberts.
My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review as part of this blog tour.
Little Rebel is a very short read; a novella of just under 80 pages in total. I read this in around an hour, and it was one of the most tense and challenging 60 minutes of my reading life!
The author writes in spare language that is excellently translated from the French by Graham H Roberts. We are told this tale by an anonymous, all-knowing, all-seeing narrator who describes the action with precise, engaging and sometimes shocking prose.
A unnamed town in France and an officer from the French Directorate for Internal Security is killed. Shot in the face and killed outright. Shot by another policeman, one who pulled the trigger purely because the officer was 'Arab'. And so begins this totally relevant, and up-to-date story of our times. It's political and it's all consuming, as the reader meets a variety of characters, who seem unconnected at first, but who are all brought together in the startling and tragic finale.
Seemingly ordinary people; a children's author, a teacher, students who will become part of history. Part of a history that has begun to define Europe and continues to do so as the radicalisation of bored young men continues.
Shocking and written with style and flair, I'm hugely impressed by this novella and look forward to reading more, lengthy work from the author in the future.
A prolific author of novels for both adults and young adults, essays and poetry, Jérôme Leroy is from Rouen.
His work has appeared in a number of languages, but Little Rebels is his first work to be translated into English.
Originally from Liverpool, Graham H Roberts has lived in the northern French city of Lille since 2003.
When he's not translating French crime fiction, he teaches at a number of HE institutions in the Lille area and in Paris.
Twitter @RobertsGraham1
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