Helene Bessette

In a family home in the north of France, a crime has been committed. But a crime of what order? Who exactly is the victim and who, if anyone, is the criminal? In Twenty Minutes of Silence, Hélene Bessette unleashes a polyphonic investigation, multiplying perspectives, contradictions, questions and doubts. Everything in this high-octane drama is subject to change, including the lighting and the basic facts of the case. Composed in her signature poetic prose style, Bessette’s novella builds a world punctured by startling disruptions and unexpected shifts, and in doing so destroys and remakes the crime novel, creating a form wholly new. Devastating and exuberant, Twenty Minutes of Silence is a vital interrogation of the powerlessness of childhood, the compromises of adulthood, and the conventions of the novel itself.

Lili is Crying, Hélene Bessette’s debut novel, explores the fraughtness and depth of the troubling relationship between Lili and her mother Charlotte. With a near-mythic quality, Bessette’s stripped-back prose evokes at once the pain of thwarted love – of desire run cold – and the promise of renewal. Lauded by critics on its initial publication in 1953 for its boundary-pushing style, unusual economy of expression, strange humour and sheer vivacity, Lili is Crying announces Bessette’s singular take on the ‘poetic novel’. This edition marks the very first translation of Bessette’s work into English, by Windham-Campbell Prize-winning author and translator Kate Briggs.