Babylon [Hardcover]

Winner of the Prix Renaudot
Shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt

Elisabeth is a woman whose curiosity and passion far exceed the borders of her quiet middle-class life. She befriends a neighbor, organizes a small dinner party. And then, quite suddenly, finds herself embarked with him on an adventure that is one part vaudeville and one part high tragedy. A quiet novel of manners turns into a police procedural thriller. Her motivations for risking everything she has are never transparent. In a world where matters of life and death are nearly always transported to a clinical setting, whether it be a hospital or a courtroom, here each character must confront them unassisted. A truly original and masterful novel from one of the world’s most inventive and daring artists. Reza is fascinated by what almost always remains unsaid: What happens if we dare to speak our minds? “Babylon” is darker and more mysterious than the plays that have brought her the most renown ... 'People who think there’s some orderly system to life — they’re lucky,' Elisabeth reflects. Any reader who begins with such a belief will have it overturned by the end of Reza’s haunting little tale. —Erica Wagner,The New York Times Book Review

“The lightness of touch bordering on comedy that [Yasmina Reza] brings to an otherwise dark tale is a reminder of her strengths as a dramatic writer, and it all adds up to a strange and memorable short book.” —The Sunday Times(UK)

...it is Ms. Reza’s dissection of Elizabeth’s malaise that is the real detective work here, and she renders it in a taut, unsparing prose style that is both exacting and unsettling. ... There’s no doubting Ms. Reza’s powers as a novelist. At her best, she can remind one of no less than Albert Camus and Joan Didion (those bards of 20th-century despair). Writers may endure more than a twinge of envy at how effortlel=