Meet the author Sarah Jollien-Fardel

Thu 7 Nov
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Sarah Jollien-Fardel grew up in a village in the Hérens district of Valais (Switzerland). She lived in Lausanne for several years before moving back to her home canton with her husband and two sons.

She became a journalist while in her thirties, and has written for numerous local and national newspapers. The places she knows and loves are the focal points of her debut novel, Sa Préférée (My Favourite).

 

About the book: 

In 1970s Switzerland, high up in the Valais mountains, is a village where everyone knows everything, and no one says anything.

Jeanne learns from an early age to dodge her father’s abuse, but her mother and sister resign themselves to his brutality. One day when she is eight he attacks her viciously, angered by her self-assurance. Convinced that the village doctor will put an end to their nightmare, she is shocked by his silence.

My Favourite is a powerful novel about departure and return, of love, guilt and shame, and the paralysing effects of trauma. Sarah Jollien-Fardel forcefully describes the price to be paid for Jeanne’s hard-won emancipation, as history inexorably repeats itself.

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