Transnational Series: Neige Sinno and Natasha Lehrer with Nina MacLaughlin

Join the for an in-store event with author Neige Sinno and translator Natasha Lehrer to discuss and celebrate the release of . They will be in conversation with writer Nina MacLaughlin.

Winner of multiple prizes, Neige Sinno has created a powerful literary form with Sad Tiger, a book that took France by storm and is an international phenomenon.

“Reading Sad Tiger is like descending into an abyss with your eyes open. It forces you to see, to really see, what it means to be a child abused by an adult, for years. Everyone should read it.” —Annie Ernaux

Sad Tiger is built on the facts of a series of devastating events. Neige Sinno was seven years old when her stepfather started sexually abusing her. At 19, she decided to break the silence that is so common in all cultures around sexual violence. This led to a public trial and Pr*son for her stepfather and Sinno started a new life in Mexico.

Through the construction of a fragmented narrative, Sinno explores the different facets of memory—her own, her mother’s, as well as her abusive stepfather’s; and of abuse itself in all its monstrosity and banality. Her account is woven together with a close reading of literary works by Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Christine Angot, and Virginie Despentes among others.

Sad Tiger—the title inspired by William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”—is a literary exploration into how to speak about the unspeakable. In this extraordinary book there is an abiding concern: how to protect others from what the author herself endured? In the midst of so much darkness, an answer reads crystal clear: by speaking up and asking questions. A striking, shocking, and necessary masterpiece.

Neige Sinno is a French writer who has studied American literature in the United States and Mexico, and worked as a translator and literature professor. She is the author of two previous books, Le Camion and La Vie des rats. Born in France, she has lived in Mexico for the past 20 years. Her 2023 book, Triste tigre, won several of France’s top literary prizes and became the publishing sensation of the year. It is published in English as Sad Tiger by Seven Stories Press, in a translation by Natasha Lehrer.

Translator Natasha Lehrer is a prizewinning writer and translator. She writes regularly for the Times Literary Supplement, the Observer, and The Guardian among many others and translated works by Chantal Thomas, Vanessa Springora, Amin Maalouf, Victor Segalen, Robert Desnos, and Georges Bataille. In 2016 she was awarded the Scott Moncrieff prize for Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Léger. She lives in France.

Moderator Nina MacLaughlin is the author of Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the Massachusetts Book Award, as well as Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award. Her first book was the acclaimed memoir Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter, a finalist for the New England Book Award. Formerly an editor at the Boston Phoenix, she worked for nine years as a carpenter, and, most recently, wrote a column on New England Literary News. Her work has appeared on or in The Paris Review Daily, The Virginia Quarterly Review, n+1, The Believer, The New York Times Book Review, Agni, American Short Fiction, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Meatpaper, and elsewhere. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith

The Transnational Series focuses on stories of migration, the intersection of politics and literature, and works in translation and is supported by the independent bookstore Brookline Booksmith. Subscribe to the Transnational Series newsletter for information on upcoming events, book recommendations, and more.

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Event Accesibility

This event will take place at street level. If possible, the event will be livestreamed to YouTube. ASL interpretation may be provided (based on the availability of interpreters) but must be requested at least 2 weeks in advance of the event. Seats are limited. Please email [email protected] as soon as possible if you require ASL interpretation, guaranteed seating, or other accommodations. We will do our best to serve your needs!

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