The Heart, a novel by Maylis De Kerangal(translated from the French by Sam Taylor, FSG/US, Éditions Verticales/FR) is long-listed for the Albertine Prize, a reader’s choice award. Albertine booksellers have selected ten of the best French novels translated into English in the past year; US-based readers can vote between March 16 and April 30th on the Albertine site here.
The Heart takes place over the 24 hours surrounding a fatal car crash and the subsequent heart transplant as life is taken from a young man and given to a dying woman. As stylistically audacious as it is emotionally explosive, the book examines the deepest emotions of everyone involved – grieving parents, doctors and nurses – as they navigate decisions of life and death. The book won numerous prizes.
Maylis De Kerangal is the author of several novels, including Je marche sous un ciel de traîne (2000), La Vie voyageuse (2003), Corniche Kennedy (2008), and Naissance d’un pont (winner of the Prix Franz Hessel and Prix Médicis in 2010, published in English as Birth of a Bridge at Talonbooks). She has also published a collection of short stories, Ni fleurs, ni couronnes (2006), a novella, Tangente vers l’est, and a fiction tribute to Kate Bush and Blondie titled Dans les rapides (2007).