The Language of Hidden Things

Original title: La langue des choses cachées

Author: Coulon, Cécile

Publication Date:

January 2024

Pages:

144

Original language and publisher

French | L’Iconoclaste

Territories Handled

Netherlands, North America, Scandinavia

Territories Sold

Spanish (World) (Planeta)
Netherlands (Vleugels)

Genre

Literary Fiction

Number of copies sold:

31,000

Awards:

  • Prix Alexandre Vialatte 2024 (longlisted)

The Language of Hidden Things

Original title: La langue des choses cachées

Author: Coulon, Cécile

Synopsis

“It’s a Grimm-style tale, painted by Caravaggio.” Didier Jacob, L’Obs
“An isolated village, healers who pass on a gift from mother to son, and bodies tortured by mysterious ailments and unspeakable violence… A dark, hallucinatory tale written by a literary virtuoso” Solange Bied-Charreton, Marianne

A dark tale revolving around Nature, its secrets, legacies and violence.

A gift that goes from mother to son.

The mother knows the language of hidden things. They call her, she comes at dusk. She knows how to heal and fix what the madness and fury of men have damaged. She knows how to accompany people on their journey towards death. And she leaves before sunrise. That’s what her duty is about. She transmits her gift day after day to her son, in silence.

One night to heal…

One night, the mother is called to the tiny village known as the “Fond du Puits”, but it is her son who goes. For the first time, he is alone. And like all the first times, nothing goes as planned. He is confronted with the silences of the past, the violence of men and the revenge of women over millennia. His mother always told him that he should never leave traces of his passage. He always obeyed his mother. Except that night.

The astonishing and poetic spiritual landscape of Cécile Coulon.

Cécile Coulon explores her obsessions: landscapes, the body, the power of women and the poetic force of Nature. In The Language of Hidden Things, her talents as a novelist and poet merge to describe the fragile balance which at every moment threatens to be overturned.