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Burqa of Skin
Burqa of Skin is a dense collection of writings channelling harrowing disenchantment and indignation. From her very first novel, Putain (Seuil, 2001), Nelly Arcan shook the literary landscape with her flamboyant lyricism and her preoccupations with such recurring themes as our culture's vertiginous obsession with youth, and its reverse: the draw of death.
Now beyond the ripples of scandal Arcan's work has caused, here are the last echoes of her work, and it is as stunning as it is brief. Burqa of Skin, with its gruesome title, catapults her work into contemporary debates on culture and gender.
The book collects three previously unpublished works: "The Dress," "The Child in the Mirror" and "Shame." The first two are written in that turbulent, suffocating language that was Arcan's singular brand, that of a writer on the edge. In the third text, she analyses with inexhaustible ferocity her humiliating experience on the set of a TV talk show. Two lesser-known non-fiction pieces are also included in this collection: a reflection on speed dating and a column published in 2004 entitled "Suicide Can Be Harmful to Your Health."
Now beyond the ripples of scandal Arcan's work has caused, here are the last echoes of her work, and it is as stunning as it is brief. Burqa of Skin, with its gruesome title, catapults her work into contemporary debates on culture and gender.
The book collects three previously unpublished works: "The Dress," "The Child in the Mirror" and "Shame." The first two are written in that turbulent, suffocating language that was Arcan's singular brand, that of a writer on the edge. In the third text, she analyses with inexhaustible ferocity her humiliating experience on the set of a TV talk show. Two lesser-known non-fiction pieces are also included in this collection: a reflection on speed dating and a column published in 2004 entitled "Suicide Can Be Harmful to Your Health."
128 pages, Paperback
First published October 13, 2011
11 people are currently reading
443 people want to read
About the author
Nelly Arcan
11 books133 followersNelly Arcan (born Isabelle Fortier) was a Canadian novelist.
Her first novel, Putain, enjoyed immediate critical and media success and was a finalist for both the Prix Médicis and the Prix Fémina. Afterwards, Arcan wrote several short stories, opinion pieces and columns for various Quebec newspapers and literary magazines.
Arcan was found dead in Montreal on September 24, 2009. According to the Montreal police spokeperson, the cause of the author's death is not yet known, but they are treating it as a suicide. She had just finished writing her last book, Paradis clés en main.
Her first novel, Putain, enjoyed immediate critical and media success and was a finalist for both the Prix Médicis and the Prix Fémina. Afterwards, Arcan wrote several short stories, opinion pieces and columns for various Quebec newspapers and literary magazines.
Arcan was found dead in Montreal on September 24, 2009. According to the Montreal police spokeperson, the cause of the author's death is not yet known, but they are treating it as a suicide. She had just finished writing her last book, Paradis clés en main.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 12, 2015
Um yeah. I don't recommend reading Nelly Arcan while you're still recovering from an unsettling read.
Arcan is like nobody else. Her prose is often beautiful at first glance; read the sentence over again, and you realize it's entirely coated in blood and pus-- impossible to get to the beauty. This collection, for some reason, got to me more than anything else I've read by her. Exit I found enjoyable, a little nauseating and ironically optimistic, Hysteric I found over the top and utterly revolting (and to Arcan's credit, there are two or three scenes from it that haunt me till now). At the core of all of it though, there's a writer with serious problems who shows parts of herself freely to her readers- depression, suicidal thoughts, pain, and all. She's not the first to do so, but there's something really cutting about the way she does it. She's simultaneously coldly factual and hysterically emotional; it's especially upsetting in this collection because by the time you're through, it's a little too easy to put together the various fragments of herself she's scattered throughout the short stories.
It's hard to read because she writes with so much hopelessness- for herself, for humans in general, and for the way society operates. "The Child in the Mirror" and "The Stare" both seem at first to be social commentary on the way women's bodies are treated. And they are- but they are also about two (I say two because it is impossible to draw the line between fiction and memoir) girls who have been seriously torn apart by their own brains, the lives they've lived, and yeah, also by social standards. Both are chilling- especially as you keep remembering real-life Arcan's suicide.
All in all I can't say that I enjoyed reading these, but Nelly Arcan has some really important things to say- about whole lot of things.
Arcan is like nobody else. Her prose is often beautiful at first glance; read the sentence over again, and you realize it's entirely coated in blood and pus-- impossible to get to the beauty. This collection, for some reason, got to me more than anything else I've read by her. Exit I found enjoyable, a little nauseating and ironically optimistic, Hysteric I found over the top and utterly revolting (and to Arcan's credit, there are two or three scenes from it that haunt me till now). At the core of all of it though, there's a writer with serious problems who shows parts of herself freely to her readers- depression, suicidal thoughts, pain, and all. She's not the first to do so, but there's something really cutting about the way she does it. She's simultaneously coldly factual and hysterically emotional; it's especially upsetting in this collection because by the time you're through, it's a little too easy to put together the various fragments of herself she's scattered throughout the short stories.
It's hard to read because she writes with so much hopelessness- for herself, for humans in general, and for the way society operates. "The Child in the Mirror" and "The Stare" both seem at first to be social commentary on the way women's bodies are treated. And they are- but they are also about two (I say two because it is impossible to draw the line between fiction and memoir) girls who have been seriously torn apart by their own brains, the lives they've lived, and yeah, also by social standards. Both are chilling- especially as you keep remembering real-life Arcan's suicide.
All in all I can't say that I enjoyed reading these, but Nelly Arcan has some really important things to say- about whole lot of things.
February 7, 2021
Recueil de textes incomplets, brouillons, répétitifs. Paradoxalement, au final, c’est cette incomplétude fondamentale qui donne sa puissance au livre. Le quatuor de nouvelles qui compose « La honte » est extrêmement réussi.
La plupart des idées qui forment la pensée de Nelly Arcan, ses obsessions, ses leitmotiv, ont été chamboulées au cours des dernières années par une nouvelle génération de penseuses et de penseurs. En ce sens, ses écrits donnent un peu l’impression d’une capsule spatio-temporelle qui nous ramène en 2007-2008, avant que des termes comme hétéronormativité, grossophobie ou masculinité toxique, ne viennent complexifier les rapports aux genres, à la beauté et à l’image.
La traduction de Melissa Bull est d’une grande acuité, elle respecte le souffle d’Arcan tout en lui donnant un véritable ton vernaculaire en anglais. Je ne peux m’empêcher de l’imaginer cringer un peu, cependant, en traduisant l’étrange introduction de Nancy Huston, saupoudrée de cet essentialisme auquel elle nous a habitués.
La plupart des idées qui forment la pensée de Nelly Arcan, ses obsessions, ses leitmotiv, ont été chamboulées au cours des dernières années par une nouvelle génération de penseuses et de penseurs. En ce sens, ses écrits donnent un peu l’impression d’une capsule spatio-temporelle qui nous ramène en 2007-2008, avant que des termes comme hétéronormativité, grossophobie ou masculinité toxique, ne viennent complexifier les rapports aux genres, à la beauté et à l’image.
La traduction de Melissa Bull est d’une grande acuité, elle respecte le souffle d’Arcan tout en lui donnant un véritable ton vernaculaire en anglais. Je ne peux m’empêcher de l’imaginer cringer un peu, cependant, en traduisant l’étrange introduction de Nancy Huston, saupoudrée de cet essentialisme auquel elle nous a habitués.
March 26, 2016
Really disliked the introduction, but loved Arcan's words and Bull's beautiful translation.
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September 2, 2025another one of the greatest
July 20, 2024
« Vouloir mourir, c’est un enfant gâté qui tue tout le monde. Le suicide est un tueur de masse détourné, un monstre par la bande. » 💔💔💔
Bon comme d’habitude, les mots de Nelly Arcand frappent! Ils sont durs et impitoyables et j’ai le moton en la lisant. C’était une si grande écrivaine, et l’un des plus grands talents québécois.
Ce recueil est différent de ce que j’ai lu d’elle. Je n’avais lu que ses romans. Ici, on retrouve quelques textes écrits en différentes occasions, mais suivant tous la même trame de fond portant sur la dépression, la honte de soi-même et l’inconfort. C’est touchant et difficile à lire, d’autant plus que la thématique du suicide est très présente dans plusieurs des textes, dont le dernier, « Se tuer peut nuire à la santé ».
À lire une fois dans sa vie.
Bon comme d’habitude, les mots de Nelly Arcand frappent! Ils sont durs et impitoyables et j’ai le moton en la lisant. C’était une si grande écrivaine, et l’un des plus grands talents québécois.
Ce recueil est différent de ce que j’ai lu d’elle. Je n’avais lu que ses romans. Ici, on retrouve quelques textes écrits en différentes occasions, mais suivant tous la même trame de fond portant sur la dépression, la honte de soi-même et l’inconfort. C’est touchant et difficile à lire, d’autant plus que la thématique du suicide est très présente dans plusieurs des textes, dont le dernier, « Se tuer peut nuire à la santé ».
À lire une fois dans sa vie.
October 24, 2025
J’ai découvert la plume de Nelly jadis avec son texte La honte et finalement ce recueil a été l’une des dernières œuvres que j’ai consommé d’elle. C’est une lecture qui se fait bien, c’est si bien écrit que le temps passe vite. C’est intéressant, touchant, frustrant par moment. Son écriture est necessaire, et il y a tellement plein de phrases clés et de passages qui donnent envie de les surligner. Bref je recommande cette lecture, et je trouve que c’est une bonne introduction à Nelly pour quelqu’un qui n’aurait pas encore lu ses œuvres.
April 21, 2018
This is my first Nelly Arcan's book. I would rather recommend to read it last because it's a little bit of an extra reading for those who are already familiar with Arcan's works, so they want to dig deeper.
Her writing voice is deeply lyrical, simple and beautiful. It's sentimental, yes, but doesn't leave the aftertaste of a cliché: "Marie-Claude thought ballerinas stayed hairless down there forever. No doubt it was too painful for her to think that tucked under the whiteness of their tutus was a starless night, an ink smear sheltering a moist animal, a mollusc, a sea sponge, a fleshy flower that would rot each month. It was too hard for her to think that the weight of the developing sex could hold down a ballerina's flight." (59)
It feels like the pages are bleeding because Nelly Arcan wrote a lot about her own suffering. Although the book is easy to read - you'll kill it in three hours - her themes are heavy and triggering. Key ideas: objectification of women and body shaming in modern society, sex work and its consequences, self-hatred, depression, death, public shaming, relationships in dysfunctional family.
I loved it because I knew exactly what I was looking for. The first story, The Dress, doesn't have that much of a plot, it's mostly a discussion on female body issues and shame that society makes women feel constantly. There is a great photography sketch - would be an interesting read for writers, such a vivid character portrait Arcan made of it!
The second one, The Child in the Mirror, is my favourite - I loved every bit of it. It looks and feels like memoirs, but Anvil Press stressed that first two stories were fiction. Still, we can see how both The Dress and The Child in the Mirror overlap the third one, Shame, which is non-fiction - sometimes the author just copy pastes full sentences from the first two stories to describe her own experience. Since she wrote mostly auto-fiction, I wouldn't be surprised if the childhood in her fiction stories were pretty close to her own childhood.
The rest - two really short non-fiction pieces - are just fine.
Great for those who's interested in topics of sex work and depersonalization disorder. I'd recommend to take this one from the library without buying it right away. If you're going to buy a book, get Nelly Arcan's Putain.
Her writing voice is deeply lyrical, simple and beautiful. It's sentimental, yes, but doesn't leave the aftertaste of a cliché: "Marie-Claude thought ballerinas stayed hairless down there forever. No doubt it was too painful for her to think that tucked under the whiteness of their tutus was a starless night, an ink smear sheltering a moist animal, a mollusc, a sea sponge, a fleshy flower that would rot each month. It was too hard for her to think that the weight of the developing sex could hold down a ballerina's flight." (59)
It feels like the pages are bleeding because Nelly Arcan wrote a lot about her own suffering. Although the book is easy to read - you'll kill it in three hours - her themes are heavy and triggering. Key ideas: objectification of women and body shaming in modern society, sex work and its consequences, self-hatred, depression, death, public shaming, relationships in dysfunctional family.
I loved it because I knew exactly what I was looking for. The first story, The Dress, doesn't have that much of a plot, it's mostly a discussion on female body issues and shame that society makes women feel constantly. There is a great photography sketch - would be an interesting read for writers, such a vivid character portrait Arcan made of it!
The second one, The Child in the Mirror, is my favourite - I loved every bit of it. It looks and feels like memoirs, but Anvil Press stressed that first two stories were fiction. Still, we can see how both The Dress and The Child in the Mirror overlap the third one, Shame, which is non-fiction - sometimes the author just copy pastes full sentences from the first two stories to describe her own experience. Since she wrote mostly auto-fiction, I wouldn't be surprised if the childhood in her fiction stories were pretty close to her own childhood.
The rest - two really short non-fiction pieces - are just fine.
Great for those who's interested in topics of sex work and depersonalization disorder. I'd recommend to take this one from the library without buying it right away. If you're going to buy a book, get Nelly Arcan's Putain.
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November 22, 2024«Peut-être parce que (entre mille autres choses) le maternage de l'État qui organise tout à distance de la réalité quotidienne de ses citoyens va de pair avec la déresponsabilisation de ces mêmes citoyens face à la misère de leurs proches. Il ne faut pas oublier que les barrières les plus solides contre la détresse des gens qui nous sont chers, c'est encore vous et moi.»
January 10, 2021
Déconcertants derniers écrits de Nelly. Je conseille de regarder son entrevue à Tout le monde en parle avant de lire la section "La honte". C'est très troublant.
August 12, 2024
Quelle femme.
July 22, 2023
« vide le monde de tout le monde et la douleur revient. »
May 16, 2013
C'est officiel: je ne suis pas fan de Nelly Arcan. Deuxième tentative pour moi et, honnêtement, je trouve que c'est trop narcissique, on est à la limite du nombrilisme, je ne m'identifie simplement pas, même si certains passages sont à mon avis pertinents en ce qui concerne notre rapport à l'image, malheureusement, ils sombrent dans l'excès.
July 28, 2017
J'adore la plume de Nelly Arcan lorsqu'elle est à son meilleur. J'y ai toujours perçu une âme et un esprit captivants, le texte peut être touchant. Cependant on sent parfois que Nelly n'est pas inspirée et qu'elle s'est assise devant son clavier sans trop savoir où mener le lecteur. Dans ces cas-là je trouve que l'écriture traîne, et elle m'ennuie profondément.
L'écriture de Nelly Arcan peut pécher par excès de zèle: et dans Burqa de chair, j'ai dû lire plusieurs passages en diagonale.
Lorsqu'elle est narrative, l'écriture est captivante et juste, mais dans la réflexion elle devient lourde.
L'écriture de Nelly Arcan peut pécher par excès de zèle: et dans Burqa de chair, j'ai dû lire plusieurs passages en diagonale.
Lorsqu'elle est narrative, l'écriture est captivante et juste, mais dans la réflexion elle devient lourde.
December 14, 2018
This is the first of the Arcan books I own that I've read. The introduction was irritating because it felt like a mea culpa for ignoring Arcan when she was alive rather than a nuanced introduction to her work. The book itself is captivating, raw — bloodily so — with the reminder that these writings on suicide, depression, gender, sex work, self-hatred, etc. are very much based on her life, which tragically ended in suicide. The Dress is the piece that I found myself quoting the most. For instance: “I never consented to this body I’ve been charged with dragging until my death—”
July 19, 2022
Quelle autrice ! Quelle écriture ! Un livre écrit en plusieurs étapes, rassemblé et publié après son suicide. Quelle tristesse !
Nelly Arcan nous parle, presque sereine (en tout cas avec plus de distance et termine en parlant d'elle à la troisième personne), de sa relation au corps, à sa mère, à la beauté, à son image et au regard de l'autre.
Avec une préface émouvante et bienvenue de Nancy Huston sur l’importance de l’oeuvre de Nelly Arcan
https://www.noid.ch/burqa-de-chair/
Nelly Arcan nous parle, presque sereine (en tout cas avec plus de distance et termine en parlant d'elle à la troisième personne), de sa relation au corps, à sa mère, à la beauté, à son image et au regard de l'autre.
Avec une préface émouvante et bienvenue de Nancy Huston sur l’importance de l’oeuvre de Nelly Arcan
https://www.noid.ch/burqa-de-chair/
September 5, 2022
3,5/5
C'est une chanson de Pomme qui m'a donné envie de découvrir l'œuvre de la controversée Nelly Arcan et wow... je suis bluffée ! Cette plume, cette sensibilité à l'état brut, cette capacité qu'elle avait à décortiquer son âme comme elle se décortiquait face au miroir est aussi magnifique que poignant. Pour saisir toute la beauté du texte, il faut cependant se renseigner un peu avant sur Nelly, connaître son histoire pour en comprendre tous les enjeux.
C'est une chanson de Pomme qui m'a donné envie de découvrir l'œuvre de la controversée Nelly Arcan et wow... je suis bluffée ! Cette plume, cette sensibilité à l'état brut, cette capacité qu'elle avait à décortiquer son âme comme elle se décortiquait face au miroir est aussi magnifique que poignant. Pour saisir toute la beauté du texte, il faut cependant se renseigner un peu avant sur Nelly, connaître son histoire pour en comprendre tous les enjeux.
February 28, 2021
3.9/5
Belle découverte! J’ai beaucoup aimé l’écriture de l’auteure. Je sais que je vais devoir me lancer dans la lecture de livres plus lus, populaires, mais jamais encensés par la critique. Hâte de me plonger dans un autre de ses romans.
Belle découverte! J’ai beaucoup aimé l’écriture de l’auteure. Je sais que je vais devoir me lancer dans la lecture de livres plus lus, populaires, mais jamais encensés par la critique. Hâte de me plonger dans un autre de ses romans.
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November 17, 2020did not finish - probably not a great idea to read if you’ve never read any of her previous books, might revisit after reading her novels
January 17, 2017
I tend to "discover" writers like I do musicians, at least five years behind the trend, if not more. I may know of them before, but I like them to ripen and see if they survive trendiness and fame before reading or listening. Often it makes little difference, and I can imagine it's all synchronicity or trickster gods dumping things in my path just when I need them. Sometimes I just miss the boat entirely (the David Foster Wallace I'm reading 30 yrs late is irrevocably dated). But Nelly Arcan (who chose to die in 2009) still reads timeless to me. Body image issues aren't going away, and neither are suicidal thoughts. I enjoyed Burqa of Skin, if you can enjoy watching someone turn themselves inside out. So, I appreciated it. I valued it. I felt the contradictions she embraced and agonized over. Contradictions that are as evident as the cover photo (by acquaintance Stéphane Najman! Dude). My gal had trouble seeing that cleavage beside my bedside table every night. And so did thousands of Quebecois who watched her interviewed and humiliated on national TV. Arcan wanted to be taken seriously as a writer, and she wanted to have a perfect and sexy body, she wanted to be treasured and she hated herself. We are all a mess of contradictions, but Ms Arcan embodied them in the public eye, and we loved and killed her for it. As I was finishing this book I also watched the absorbing documentary "Author: The J.T. LeRoy Story", and found it had strong parallels with Arcan's life story. Although "JT LeRoy" became a 3-D avatar for Laura Albert, Nelly Arcan was also an avatar for Isabelle Fortier, her way of refashioning herself (along with multiple cosmetic surgeries), her way of getting out the words and pain and sadness. Now I have to continue going backward and read her earlier work, including most famously Whore (Putain) (Burqa is a compilation of short works put together in 2011 a few years after her death). And then I'll have to read it in the original French. Not that strong in capturing the nuances of style in French, so I can't say yet how sympathetic this translation was, but it reads well.
August 19, 2023
4,5.
On a toujours senti, chez Arcan, un masochisme quasi compulsif qui la fait pousser à l’extrême ses émotions, une démarche dont le but est peut-être, comme le propose Burqa de chair, « d’en extraire le sens ». Ces derniers écrits sont véritablement superbes, bien que La honte demeure le texte le plus remarquable du lot.
On a toujours senti, chez Arcan, un masochisme quasi compulsif qui la fait pousser à l’extrême ses émotions, une démarche dont le but est peut-être, comme le propose Burqa de chair, « d’en extraire le sens ». Ces derniers écrits sont véritablement superbes, bien que La honte demeure le texte le plus remarquable du lot.
February 3, 2013
Une très belle écritre, profonde et poignante, d'une jeune femme en processus d'auto-destruction. A éviter en cas de dépression.
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