ABOUT
THE BOOK

All her life, Yan-Zi has been dominated by her mother, who scolds her, corrects her behaviour and manners, urges her to adopt bourgeois mores, and ceaselessly reminds her that her very life is a debt she owes to others, especially her mother. So Yan-Zi decides to commit suicide in order to shake off the yoke of her mother’s love. In this novel she tells the story of her last days with a cool, cruel detachment that recalls Camus’s The Stranger. Ying Chen has unearthed some of the violence buried within our family lives. In strong, direct, transparent prose, Ingratitude gives voice to universal truths about the relationships between children and their parents.

Original title in French L’ingratitude published by Lémeac Éditeur (1995)