'I got a letter one day, a long letter that wasn't signed.' Camille reads this narration of events from pre-war France, certain that it has been sent to her by mistake. Then more letters start to arrive - They tell of a friendship struck up between a young village girl, Annie, and Madame M, a bourgeois lady. To begin with the women simply share a love of art, but when Annie offers to carry a child for her infertile friend, their lives become intimately entwined. The child is born on the eve of the German invasion of France, and the repercussions of her birth are still felt decades later. This powerful first novel by Helene Gremillion is a gripping study of the destruction unleashed, when human desires for love and motherhood turn to obsession.

Translated by: Alison Anderson