Assimilation

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Drama hanesyddol sy'n pontio sawl cenhedlaeth, yn llawn dirgelwch ac amgylchiadau dryslyd.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

A multi-generational historical drama, full of mystery and deeply-wrought circumstances.

Dosbarthu

Byddwn yn dosbarthu eitemau sydd mewn stoc o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith, fel arfer drwy Royal Mail Tracked 48. Ar gyfer archebion o flaen llaw, byddwn yn dosbarthu’r eitem o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl ei derbyn gan ein cyflenwr.

Dispatch

In-stock items will be dispatched within 3 business days, usually by Royal Mail Tracked 48. For pre-orders, we’ll dispatch within 3 business days of receiving the item from our supplier.

Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

Sophie Buchaillard writes contemporary fiction that reflects on the anxieties of our age, using movement and migration, to connect history with our reality. Her short stories and essays have appeared in a wide array of literary magazines and newspapers. She also writes about the environment under the handle #plasticfree.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

Sophie Buchaillard’s debut novel, This Is Not Who We Are (Seren), was shortlisted for 2023’s Wales Book of the Year. It was a novel published in Wales, interrogating France’s role in the Rwandan genocide. This international melting pot of author, novel and publisher almost foretells the complex international, multigenerational saga that forms the basis of Assimilation , Buchaillard’s latest offering. Assimilation (Honno) is a novel that questions identity and nationalism. It really explores what it means to assimilate and asks if that’s ever truly possible. Assimilation is a novel of a rare kind. It balances quiet literary introspection – personal, reflective, and poetic – alongside a plot and epic story that drives the reader through bite-size chapters at a rate of knots. Charlotte is born in France, to French-Moroccan parents. After moving to Cardiff as a student, a sense of being a permanent outsider rubs against her efforts to establish new roots. As things start to fall apart, Charlotte begins to investigate her past and the choices and actions of those who came before her. With links to north Africa and familial connections that reach India, Vietnam, and Colombia, Assimilation has it all: it is an international, interconnected crime thriller, with murder, CIA agents, journalists, international prisoners and even a pet bear. The exotic and adventurous sit alongside the realities of being defined by those around you as an outsider. Buchaillard is a master at weaving together elements of adventure alongside the uniquely personal and reflective. We are fed Charlotte’s story along with a cast of others, each with their own role to play in her story and their own light to shine on the issues that the novel so cleverly raises. Ultimately this is a book that questions what exactly it is that defines an identity. Reflecting on her time as an Erasmus student, for example, Charlotte initially leans into the idea of global citizenship. Of her fellow Erasmus cohort in Cardiff she says, ‘Our number made us feel part of a global community, allowing us to forget that none of the British students had ever extended an invitation to any one of us. We had come to immerse ourselves into a new culture, only to be politely ostracised.’ Buchaillard’s skill, however, is to not make identity just a global issue. ‘People here have been robbed of their identity by Thatcher’, Charlotte is told by a guide when visiting former mining towns. The issue of identity and assimilation ultimately comes down to what it means to be defined by external factors beyond your own control. Charlotte’s accent, her country of birth, her family, and her gender, all add to the complications she faces. Buchaillard expertly addresses these factors, and masters the great novelist’s challenge of taking a story uniquely personal to address wider and bigger issues. The fundamentals of identity, personal definitions, assimilation and family ties feel philosophically pulled apart in Assimilation , while also taking the form of an immensely readable novel that would make an incredible Netflix adaptation. Assimilation is a novel that firmly establishes Buchaillard as a novelist destined for wider recognition.