Guernica Editions

France Théoret and Luise von Flotow (Translator)

Louise Aubert leaves Mathieu Lord when he joins the Stalinist party. Fifteen years later, she writes a letter in which she dares express her vision of their common history, marked by authoritarianism, mental cruelty and the absence of sharing in the name of love. In the story that follows this letter, Louise recalls each sequence of her break with Mathieu and exposes the duplicity of the intellectual avant-garde. She also describes how she re-entered society freed from censorship and how she finds the inner strength to speak the truth. La Femme du stalinien is the final novel of a trilogy that includes L'Homme qui peignait Staline [1989] and Les Apparatchiks vont à la mer Noire [2004].

My voice is not stable. This is most inconvenient. The idea of writing you a letter came to me after I read about Hitler's extermination camps and the Soviet gulag. Each piece I read inhabits me. I am endlessly grateful to the authors who wrote them. These readings changed me. I left you, and it was because of your Stalinism.

Awards

• Governor-General's Award (shortlisted)