LiteraturSchweiz

Reading tip

Anne Brécart, La Lenteur de l'aube: What kind of world does Hanna inhabit? She returns to the city she grew up in – and it is no easy return. Her mother, who had summoned her back, is still difficult, but Hanna had expected that. What was so urgent that she had to leave the United States and come back right away? Suddenly her terminally ill mother is in no hurry to see her daughter. So Hanna takes a room in a small boarding house where she and her mother had lived thirty years earlier, and begins to explore the neighbourhood. Walking through the 'city by the lake' that clearly refers to Geneva, she meets ghosts from her past. She meets people who were once important to her: friends, lovers, playmates from the old days. People for whom she once risked everything. They have remained here, while she has long been living in New Jersey.