Anne Serre

Translated by Mark Hutchinson

First published 1 June 2021

‘To make a pact with the thing that threatens you is arguably the smartest trick of all.’ From the brilliant, sui generis Anne Serre come three bewitching, thoroughly out-of-the-way tales, in which kernels of trauma, loss, loneliness and obsession are glimpsed through the glittering gauze of fiction.

The Fool may have stepped out of a tarot pack – to walk a mountain trail or worm his way into a writer’s mind. The Narrator proposes his mirror image, a storyteller in sheep's clothing, who has a bone to pick with language. The power of narrative to trump a stark reality is perhaps at its strongest in the last story; in The Wishing Table the orgiastic antics of an incestuous family are recounted by one of three daughters. A dream logic rules each of these unpredictable, sensual, and surreal stories: romps no doubt, yet deeply moral, and entirely unforgettable ones.

See reviews in the Irish Times, the New York Times and more

‘I love the way Anne Serre’s mind works, and her slyly seductive approach to narrative.’ — Adam Mars-Jones

‘I read Anne Serre’s The Fool and Other Moral Tales two years ago, during a hard time. Reading it again, I am startled by the force and splendor of her descriptions of cruelty and compassion in families, friendships, sexual entanglements, art, poetry, tarot, and everything in between.’ — Merve Emre, on Twitter

By the same author: The Governesses(2019).

228 pages
paperback, 185 x 114 mm
isbn 978-1-8380141-5-5

NB: Due to sales restrictions and VAT regulations, this book does not ship to countries of the EU, Canada or the USA. For the EU, please use alternative UK or local online retailers. This book is published in North America by New Directions.