My Heart Hemmed In | Marie NDiaye | Granta Magazine

My Heart Hemmed In

Marie NDiaye

Translated by Jordan Stump

‘I stagger from the shock. I feel the corners of my mouth turning down. My jaw begins to tremble. Yes, yes, yes, I say to myself, get ahold of yourself.’

Marie NDiaye

Marie NDiaye was born in 1967 in Pithiviers, France. She is the author of around twenty novels, plays, collections of stories and non-fiction books, which have been translated into numerous languages. She’s received the Prix Femina and the Prix Goncourt, France’s highest literary honor, and her plays are in the repertoire of the Comédie-Française. She lives in Berlin. Photograph © Francesca Mantovani

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Translated by Jordan Stump

Jordan Stump is a Professor of French at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the translator of around thirty works of (mostly) contemporary French-language fiction, by authors such as Marie Redonnet, Eric Chevillard, Marie NDiaye and Scholastique Mukasonga.

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