Nicola Denis

A very individual portrait of the narrator’s four unmarried aunts, who – instead of fulfilling predetermined female role models – preferred to form a close bond of sisterhood.
The quartet of aunts faced the world in an educated and confident manner: Marianne, a neurologist, set the tone in the family; Hanne, a chemical-technical assistant, was the only one in pants; then Irene, a car-driving pharmacist, and Hilde, the most fun-loving of the four. None of them fit into the rigid role models of the postwar period, and yet the voluntarily chosen family corset sometimes persistently pinched. Nicola Denis interweaves family and contemporary panoramas to create a wonderfully lively cosmos of female autonomy.

Nicola Denis, born in Celle in 1972, has been translating from French for many years, including Honoré de Balzac, Éric Vuillard, and Marie-Claire Blais. In 2021, she received the Prix lémanique de la traduction for her translation work. She lives in the west of France. Die Tanten (2022) is her literary debut.