Mothers, Daughters, and the Supernatural: A Conversation with Marie NDiaye

Blending the uncanny with precise psychological insight, NDiaye’s work has long explored the invisible forces shaping family life, identity, and power. In this conversation, she will reflect on her literary career, her approach to writing across genres, and her exploration of the uncanny within everyday life.

The discussion will also explore recurring themes in her work, including intergenerational inheritance,and the complex emotional landscapes between mothers and daughters. Together, NDiaye and Saraswat will discuss writing women who claim agency in worlds structured to silence them, and how elements of the supernatural can illuminate deeply human realities.
Praise and Recognition for Vengeance is Mine (Knopf, 2025)
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, TIME, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CrimeReads, Words Without Borders
“[NDiaye] is a master at agitating, probing, and upending expectations.” — The New York Times Book Review “You won’t be able to put it down.” — Vogue
This presentation will be followed by a Q&A, a book signing, and a glass of wine.

Info: About The Witch

Set in a small French town, The Witch follows Lucie, born into a lineage of women whose supernatural gifts are passed from mother to daughter. Long forced into silence by fear and male authority, Lucie defies her controlling husband and initiates her twin daughters into their inheritance, setting in motion a transformation that is both ecstatic and terrifying.

Dreamlike yet deeply psychological, the novel explores the fragile bonds between mothers and daughters, the cost of power and of repressing it, and the moment when children become freer and more dangerous than their parents. With mounting tension and emotional precision, NDiaye captures the unsettling truth that love, freedom, and fear often grow from the same roots.

“The Witch is Marie NDiaye at her most dazzling. In this simple, startlingly powerful novel, NDiaye lays outher central themes: familial secrets, power, shame, andliberation. NDiaye is one of the greats—her novels are mesmerizing, wholly singular,

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

French Library / Alliance Française of Boston & Cambridge, 53 Marlborough Street, Boston, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

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