Dirty week-end

by Helen Zahavi, Jean Esch (Translator)

Bella en a assez. Bien que discrète, elle ne supporte plus le voyeurisme de son voisin, la main baladeuse de son épicier de quartier. Elle ne supporte pas davantage les comportements malsains que génère la promiscuité de son train de banlieue aux heures de pointe. C'est alors qu'elle décide par un beau matin, elle si discrète, de mettre un terme à ces conduites de la manière la plus radicale qui soit : l'élimination de tous ces mâles déviants. Devenue tueuse en série, Bella y prendra un plaisir jusque-là insoupçonné… Les rôles seront dès lors inversés. Roman d'une violence rare sur les rapports de domination, il sera le dernier livre de littérature à faire l'objet d'une demande d'interdiction pour immoralisme à la Chambre des Lords lors de sa parution en 1991. Il est adapté au cinéma par Michael Winner en 1993.

219 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 23, 2025

About the author

Helen Zahavi is a British novelist who worked as a Russian-English translator before becoming a writer.

Her first novel, Dirty Weekend (1991), is about a young woman who is tormented by a predatory neighbour until she finally has enough. So with a smile on her lips and a gun in her hand she goes out in the night and kills seven perverts in two days.

The book caused a media storm on publication and critical reaction was extreme and polarised. A half-page article in The Sunday Times questioning the book's morality and the author's sanity set the tone for much of the press comment that followed. The novel was attacked by Salman Rushdie, defended by Naomi Wolf, and analysed at length in both the broadsheet and popular press.

Despite - or perhaps because of - the controversy, the book went on to become an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Czech and Korean. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and adapted into a film by Michael Winner, the director of Death Wish. Helen Zahavi has a screen credit as co-writer.

She has written two further novels, True Romance (1994) and Donna And The Fatman (1998), both of which have been widely reviewed and translated.

Reviews

[Grouaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

le thème était jouissif mais je crains que la traduction en français était toute petée. J'ai du coup très envie de le lire en version originale parce que l'écriture de celui que j'ai lu était vraiment mal foutue.

[Manon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Réaction logique et proportionnée. Finalement, c’est Bella qui est la plus normale d’entre nous.