Marie Darrieussecq writes in the Times Literary Supplement: ‘It seems that Emmanuel Carrère is now thought to be France’s “greatest living writer”. France has always needed a greatest writer, and even if there are many great French writers, there is only ever one space. Throughout history, Montaigne, Molière, Rousseau, Hugo, Camus and Sartre have filled it at various moments. In the 1980s, Marguerite Duras was a contender, but Samuel Beckett and Claude Simon snagged the crown ahead of her.’

Darrieussecq adds: ‘Carrère’s new book, Kolkhoze, can be read as the biography of a hard-working woman who becomes a neglectful mother.’

And: ‘Carrère’s mother was never, ever wrong.’ Her sense of humor was limited.

Darrieussecq admires the book, but this sentence frightens her: ‘I loved my mother in my childhood as I have never loved and will never love anyone in my life.’

Well, mothers first, lovers and children second.

(a sf 2028)