Winner of the inaugural French Orange Prize in 2009: A subtle, moving novel that explores the limitless ways in which humans inflict harm on each other, and how individual people, not societies, are the perpetrators.
During a school trip to Buchenwald concentration camp, a young French teacher comes across a photograph of a man whose resemblance to his own father, Adrien, is uncanny. However, the man has a different name and died in 1942. him to the Buchenwald archives, to the heart of the Nazi machine, but more disturbingly, draws him into the dark heart of his own family. Eventually, he is brought face-to-face with his own capacity for violence.
Awards
Winner of the French Orange Prize in 2009 Prix Renaudot's Livre de Poche Prize
Author description
Fabrice Humbert currently teaches literature at a French secondary school. In 2009 The Origins of Violence was published in France, where it was immediately hailed by the press as 'a great novel' and 'a revelation'. This exceptional critical acclaim was rewarded when the novel won the first ever French Orange Prize for Fiction.
