The Fire Woman

Asya Djoulaït's debut novel.

Co-translated with Charlotte Coombe.

About the author

Asya Djoulaït was born in Paris in 1993 to Algerian parents. She teaches literature at a high school in the Parisian banlieues. At the age of 25, Djoulaït wrote her first novel, Noire Précieuse (The Fire Woman), published by Gallimard (2020). She won the Sorbonne ‘Prix de la Nouvelle’ short story prize, and the Prix du jeune écrivain [Young Writers Prize]. She was also shortlisted for the Société des gens des lettres (SGDL) Prix Révélation for the First Novel award.

About The Fire Woman

“Trembling, Céleste gathered up what little courage she had left to study her mother’s hands as they tucked her in. They moved like a lie being formed, a coffin being sealed shut. The hands brought Céleste out of her childhood. They were wood fire, churned up by lava, marked by flames, streaked with grey and shame.”

The story of a mother who flays her own flesh in an attempt to find her place in society. It is centred around the relationship between a young girl and her mother, a story of Black, French identity, and of the modes of communication circulating in the streets of Paris’s 18th arrondissement, between Château-d'Eau and Boulevard Saint-Germain. In Noire Précieuse, the creole language Nouchi meets the "French of the whites" and seeps into Ivorian slang.

Inspired by the Greek tragedy Medea, The Fire Woman is the story of a relationship that is as sensitive as a caress, as violent as an identity imposed from the outside, and has the power to stir the reader’s blood. This story is first and foremost one of culture shock between Africa and France, of a conflict of identity that plunges its protagonists into a complex state of ambivalence. Oumou, who has destroyed her skin in her attempts to make it lighter, and who intends never to set foot in Africa again, dreams of success and integration for her daughter. But she is as afraid of seeing her marry a white man as she is of her attachment to her Ivorian roots. Céleste seems to be on the cusp of a promising career, but this makes her hesitate all the more between two continents and two worlds, as she prepares for the split between her working-class background and the Parisian intellectual elite.

Praise for the novel

“This is Asya Djoulaït's tour de force: showing how questioning our identity does not mean simply abandoning one way of life for another, but embracing everything that is around us and within us.” - Le Monde

“A relevant, refreshing read, this first novel captures the inner journey of an unforgettable heroine with joyful empathy, and the journey of so many young French people of African descent.” - Le Monde

“In 160 absorbing pages, Noire Précieuse takes a walk through the Château Rouge district in the north of Paris, with jubilant language (Ivorian French) and identity issues that are more than skin-deep: in 2020, can you be a gifted young black girl in 2020 and fall in love with a quintessential white French boy like Grégoire without asking questions about colour?” - RFI

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