The Jurywoman

Original title: La Jurée

Author: Jéhanno, Claire

Publication Date:

April 2023

Pages:

352

Original language and publisher

Territories Handled

Worldwide excl. French

Genres

Debut Novel, Literary Fiction

Awards:

  • Prix Ouest du Printemps du livre à Montaigu (longlisted)
  • Prix JC Brialy du salon de Saumur (longlisted)
  • 2023 Prix Maison de la Presse (finalist)

The Jurywoman

Original title: La Jurée

Author: Jéhanno, Claire

Synopsis

Claire Jéhanno’s first novel, La Jurée is a book with a construction as masterful as it is effective. With its limpid writing, La Jurée raises subtle, thorny questions, taking care not to impose conventional answers on the reader. — Le Monde des Livres

Brilliant. — ELLE

A moving debut novel that’s very insightful about family secrets.

The author who is a real virtuoso at autopsying her characters’ psyches, she attended several trials over the course of a year.

A week in the life of a jurywoman that changes her forever.

Anna Zeller has been called for jury duty. The experience is as dizzying as it is unprecedented for her. Called on to decide about the guilt or innocence of a young couple with no priors on trial for poisoning and murder, the young woman will see her own past looming up. A past that will transport her twenty years back, to a playground in Brittany. On the day that Anna Boulanger became Anna Zeller.

The jury members have one week to decide the fate of the accused and to get a handle on their disturbing past. That’s also how long it will take for Anna’s life to be oupended.

A luminous first novel about seeking the truth, memories and the fragility of foregone conclusions.