THERE'S A MONSTER BEHIND THE DOOR by Gaëlle Bélem

Translated by Karen Fleetwood and Laétetia Saint-Lourbert

Turns out the folk at the Republic of Consciousness Prize are for more efficient than I could ever hope to be. Three books into reviewing the shortlist and they go and announce the winner. So here you have it, There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Réunionese writer Gaëlle Bélem, a riotous celebration of life on the tiny island, carried by a voice that brims with joyful electricity, set against a history of colonialism, violence and poverty.

For the most part it’s the story of a marriage - a disastrous one between two people that could not be less suited to one another - recounted by its vivacious, literature-obsessed daughter. Beneath the surface, however, lies the tale of a family curse. Where a Dessaintes goes, calamity follows. And, superstition being as it is, the family cop the blame for every local ill. Terrible fates await each Dessaintes, fates that you hope the narrator - as the last in line - will escape.

Bélem is unforgiving in her vivisection of Réunionese society, but the novel is never dour or overbearing. Rather, its narrator is an absolute delight - staring into the abyss with a shit-eating grin.

There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem (Tr. Karen Fleetwood and Laétetia Saint-Lourbert)
Bullaun Press, 2024
164 pages