The Last One
Fatima Daas author Lara Vergnaud translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:HopeRoad Publishing Ltd
Published:27th Jan '22
Should be back in stock very soon
Fatima Daas has been hailed as the voice of a new generation
The daughter of Algerian immigrants, Fatima Daas is raised in a home where love and sexuality are taboo. When Nina comes into her life, she doesn't know exactly what she needs but feels that something crucial has been missing.
The daughter of Algerian immigrants, Fatima Daas is raised in a home where love and sexuality are considered taboo and signs of affection avoided. Living in the majority-Muslim Clichy-sous-Bois, she often spends hours a day commuting into the city, where she feels like a tourist observing Parisian life. She goes from unstable student to maladjusted adult, doing years of therapy. As she gains distance from her family, she grapples with her attraction to women and how it fits with her religion, which she continues to practice. When Nina comes into her life, she doesn’t know exactly what she needs but feels that something crucial has been missing.
'Through fiction, I was able to explore everything that had made me,' Daas says. 'Being a woman, but not what was expected of a woman. Being a north African woman, but also French, the only member of the family born in France. Being lesbian, being Muslim. It was almost a luxury for me, through fiction, to make all those identities coexist in my central character. I knew that those identities were in tension and confrontation in society, but for once, through fiction, I felt like I was liberating and reconciling them'
"An absorbing exploration of sexuality and religion" - New European
Fatima Daas has written a first novel with percussive lyricism. With a narrator torn between ‘the forbidden’ and her desire’-Livres Hebdo
'Fatima Daas's impressive debut novel has the urgency of well-made cinéma-vérité' - TLS
‘Daas has chosen not to play the designated role of ‘the chick from the banlieue who made it’. All of this makes her path harder, as does her unwillingness to iron out the conflict she sees between her religion and her sexuality. This has made for a fine first novel’- NLR
"The musical quality of the novel is key - the story races along with the pace of a song or a poem ... Daas's depiction of Paris has been hailed by critics ... Her beautifully drawn descriptions of endless hours on public transport were Daas's way of exploring a commute she once considered 'normal', then grew to see as an 'injustice'. Daas's overriding message is that you don't have to give up any part of yourself: you can inhabit a host of seemingly clashing identities at once.' - The Guardian
"The Last One is a thoughtful examination of a character who deeply wants to be known despite lacking the tools to do any of that self-excavation. The work is tender and sweet, lyrically built, and reprises itself in fascinating ways." - Kristen Arnett, author of Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth
"The Last One is a bombshell that examines the question of identity with subtlety and passion." - Elle (France)
- Winner
ISBN: 9781913109851
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 158g
208 pages