Self Portrait In Green
Marie NDiaye

Translated by Jordan Stump

‘Wades through feminine fear, power, and insecurity like no other book I’ve encountered.’
– Flavorwire 

'One of France’s most exciting prose stylists and playwrights'
– Guardian 

Obsessed by her encounters with the mysterious green women, and haunted by the Garonne River, a nameless narrator seeks them out in La Roele, Paris, Marseille, and Ouagadougou. 

Each encounter reveals different aspects of the women; real or imagined, dead or alive, seductive or suicidal, driving the narrator deeper into her obsession, in this unsettling exploration of identity, memory and paranoia.

Self Portrait in Green is the multi-prize winning, Marie NDiaye’s brilliant subversion of the memoir. Written in diary entries, with lyrical prose and dreamlike imagery, we start with and return to the river, which mirrors the narrative by posing more questions than it answers.

About the Author

Marie NDiaye met her father for the first time at age fifteen, two years before publishing her first novel. She is the recipient of the Prix Femina and the first Black woman to win the Prix Goncourt, the latter being the highest honour a French writer can receive. Longlisted for 2013 Man Booker International Prize, she is the author of a dozen plays and works of prose.

About the Translator

Jordan Stump is one of the leading translators of innovative French literature. The recipient of numerous honours and prizes, he has translated books by Nobel Laureate Claude Simon, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, and Eric Chevillard, as well as Jules Verne’s French Language novel The Mysterious Island.

Paperback ISBN: 9781910312896

Ebook ISBN: 9781910312902

Publication date: February 2021

Formats: Paperback / eBook