Un monstre est là, derrière la porte

by Gaëlle Bélem

"Mes parents étaient animés d'une seule et abjecte conviction : que la meilleure façon d'élever des enfants était de leur clouer le bec en les terrorisant ! Ils n'expliquaient donc pas, ils épouvantaient. Ils ne persuadaient jamais puisqu'il était plus simple d'intimider."1981, ville de Sainte-Marie. Les Dessaintes forment l'une des familles les plus célèbres de La Réunion. Ils sont ambitieux, courageux et un brin fantaisistes. Mais, de l'avis du voisinage, des psychiatres et de la police, ils sont juste cinglés. Tout aussi déséquilibrés et dangereux qu'ils soient, ils mettent au monde une fille. Une petite teigne qui compte bien devenir quelqu'un.

Genres: Fiction, France, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Africa, Historical, Ebooks

256 pages, Pocket Book

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Adina ( not enough time ) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book 6/13

4.5* rounded up and my 2nd favourite of the longlist.

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025
Winner of the UK Republic Of Consciousness award 2025 for small presses.

Translated to English by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert.

I am very disappointed it was not shortlisted for the International Booker prize but glad it won the ROFC one.

I accidental deleted all my notes and quotes so ’That's the way it is and that's that.'. That is how the narrator's parents answer every time she has a question, in case you were wondering how i got the quote. Just like we learn in the parenting manuals that we should answer to our kids. :))

As I wrote before, the novel is a humorous story about a girl's hardship as she was growing up in impoverished Reunion, “a heap of rubble on the edge of the world where the worst human superstitions, chased out by waves of European scepticism, had finally found a welcoming harbour”. It's a story about poverty and violence told in a dark fast-paced, funny narrative. It is a critique of the post-colonialism and more. Enjoyed it tremendously.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winner of the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize, UK & Ireland, for small presses
Shortlisted for the Scott Moncrieff Prize for translations into English of full-length French works of literary merit and general interest
Longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize

They were driven by a single abject certainty: the best way to bring up children was to shut them up by terrorizing them! Rather than explain things, they petrified them, and they never resorted to persuasion because it was easier to intimidate.

Mes parents étaient animés d'une seule et abjecte conviction : que la meilleure façon d'élever des enfants était de leur clouer le bec en les terrorisant ! Ils n'expliquaient donc pas, ils épouvantaient. Ils ne persuadaient jamais puisqu'il était plus simple d'intimider.

There's a Monster Behind the Door (2024) is the translation by Laëtitia Saint-Loubert and Karen Fleetwood of Gaëlle Bélem's debut novel Un monstre est là, derrière la porte (2020).

The novel begins:

‘That’s the way it is and that’s that!’

While parents usually get carried away trying to explain the great mysteries of life and the why and wherefore of everything to their offspring, the Dessaintes always proved exceptionally mean
when it came to explanations.

The translators and author of the novel prove rather more generous, with a useful foreword as well as 31 unobtrustive footnotes (some from the original, some added) as well as some helpful glosses.

The novel is set, starting in the early 1980s and covering c. two decades, on the island of La Réunion:

Welcome to the island of La Réunion in the 1980s: a heap of rubble on the edge of the world where the worst human superstitions, chased out by waves of European scepticism, had finally found a welcoming harbour.
[...]
Any anticolonialist from another French territory would have been quick to evoke the learned inferiority complex, traumatic memories, perverse determinism, collective neurosis and vicious circles of violence – but here they only talked of a difficult end to the century, of a century on its last legs. And it was then, as the sun set on this shipwreck century, that my parents took it into their heads to be born, to grow up, to get married and to perpetuate their line.

This humorous and disparaging tone is typical of the novel's narrator, a young woman, I think in her late teens at the time the novel is written, looking back on her life to that point. She is, with her mother, one of only two Dessaintes who hadn’t been locked up left in La Réunion, the Dessaintes an unruly family, and her parents taking little interest in her education, preferring superstition and scare-stories to science.

Indeed the narrator has a relationship with them, and her violent family, than reminds me of Matilda, although her own model is the 19th century author Jules Vallès (1832-1885), whose L’Enfant (The Child) he dedicated to ‘all those who died of boredom at school or were made to cry in the family, who, during their childhood, were tyrannised by their teachers or scolded by their parents’.

I read everything. Maupassant, Cicero, Hesse and Rostand, Süskind and Mirbeau. Loti, Melville, Seneca, Lautréamont, À rebours, Lao She and Livy. Anything that could be used as a door wedge or paper weight. Anything that would otherwise be easy fuel when we ran low on candles on the night of a cyclone. Lots of comics too. I would have sold my father for a Picsou Magazine or a Mickey Parade Géant. This universe of coloured speech-bubbles where the evil characters are not really that bad has never left me: the characters are just brainless individuals with clenched fists – a little narcissistic, a little complicated – who want to conquer the world out of sheer stupidity and boredom. So when nothing’s going right, when the walls get so high that even prayers can’t help you scale them, I open a comic book. As if leaning over a precipice, I dive right in, seeking a different world where no one can find me and I can forget. I have a book on my bedside table. Because I don’t have a gun.

This is a novel, in Saint-Loubert and Karen Fleetwood's vibrant translation of rich prose, steeped in the traditions of the island, although observed with an offbeat slant, this her imagining of her parent's wedding:

A few hours later comes the ordeal of the dessert: a wedding cake consisting of five tiers of choux puffs, decorated with arabesques, wafer flowers that have now wilted, and pink and blue ribbons. Just like the dole office, a long queue of half-asleep people forms, snakes its way towards the choux puffs and smacks two kisses on the cheeks of the bride and groom in exchange for a paper plate that contains a piece of the cake – a bizarre confection of liquorice syrup, soursop puree, preserved loquats, creamed red kuri squash, salted jackfruit and caramelized jujube. Nobody knows exactly what it is, only that it’s bad.

But under the humour, this is a powerful story of someone struggling to escape the trappings of post-colonialism, poverty and a troubled family legacy through learning and literature.

The judges' citation

“A rollicking, sardonic picaresque set on the French outpost of La Réunion in the. 1980s. The novel has important things to say about colonialism and society, but it’s also tremendous fun — darkly funny, acerbic, energetic. There’s scarcely a dull moment on the page, and the translation is remarkably slick.”

The press

A recent arrival on the Irish publishing scene, Bullaun Press has chosen literature in translation as its focus. It is the first such press of this kind in Ireland. We aspire to open up a space for readers seeking new and different voices.

Founder Bridget Farrell’s background in independent publishing and languages inspired her to set up Bullaun in 2021. She wants to see the press become an advocate for translators, especially Irish and Irish-based ones. Bullaun is open to approaches from translators looking for a home for a text that they are passionate about.

Translators will also be commissioned to work on recent books that could strike a chord with an Irish audience and beyond. As well as an enriching our reading experiences, it’s an important gesture of recognition of the cultural heritage of some of the many different language-speakers living in Ireland. We’d love to hear from you about compelling books that have not yet been translated into English.

What's a bullaun? (from Wikipedia)

A bullaun (Irish: bullán; from a word cognate with "bowl" and French bol) is the term used for the depression in a stone which is often water filled. Natural rounded boulders or pebbles may sit in the bullaun. The size of the bullaun is highly variable and these hemispherical cups hollowed out of a rock may come as singles or multiples with the same rock.

Local folklore often attaches religious or magical significance to bullaun stones, such as the belief that the rainwater collecting in a stone's hollow has healing properties. Ritual use of some bullaun stones continued well into the Christian period and many are found in association with early churches, such as the 'Deer' Stone at Glendalough, County Wicklow

The judges' take

If there ever was a need to prove how a translation can vividly recreate a sense of place and time and personhood, Gaëlle Bélem’s There’s a Monster Behind the Door would be exhibit A, with translators Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert brought in to testify. In prose that throbs with verve, humour and pain, this narrative set on the island of Réunion brings to life a narrator beset with the history of her family and her people, who tries to use the power of language and literature to transcend her circumstances. While she fails within the story, the book succeeds – spectacularly – as a novel.

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize and winner of the UK Republic of Consciousness Prize 2025
The End of Eddy set in La Réunion in the 1980s, described by the author as ‘a heap of rubble on the edge of the world’
So how will cases like mine be judged? Who’s worse: those who watch people make mistakes and do nothing to stop them or those who keep hanging on, who ignore the fact they live on a precipice and keep on trying anyway?

Alcoholism, missing father, mother overdosing just before a final exam, homelessness, domestic abuse, thoughts of suicide, 60% youth unemployment and endless bills. The protagonist in There's a Monster Behind the Door has it far from easy in this coming of age narrative. In a way this novel uses the quaint detached tone that the start of The Lord of the Rings has, but than with domestic abuse and 11 siblings fighting for attention, with the occasional wedding party. The opening with ‘That’s the way it is and that’s that!’ parents who constantly watch TV and ignore the precocious reading girl reminded me of Matilda.
I never felt too close to the story (maybe in a sense it felt too over the top? Even though I recognised some parenting methods) and had times that I caught myself thinking “Why am I reading this”, e.g. what is the overarching purpose of the novel. Still the struggle to escape family and social setting and generational violence is interesting, even if the end was not as strong as the start of the novel.

Attempts to escape family and social setting, while navigating generational violence, makes this feel in a certain way like The End of Eddy by Édouard Louis, although here sexuality is replaced as theme by the underprivileged setting of Reunion, almost a character in itself. La Réunion, in the 1980s, described by the Gaëlle Bélem as ‘a heap of rubble on the edge of the world’. Social control is also strongly present. The main character often calls her parents crazy, and many events validate this view, but it is also funny that some of the method made me think of things I was told at times as a child, with my mother saying she could see me lie by a blue mark on my forehead and also the story of a tree growing in your belly when you accidentally swallow a seed was definitely told to me.

Horror movies and bouts of piety and bible study alternate, with weddings and occasional bouts of homelessness and family members going missing. Some historical episodes give more background to the family of the main character and how they came to the island. These sections made me think of the Florida Project movie and of the abject poverty, yet light style espoused inI Capture the Castle. Maybe I am a bit blasé with coming of age, but despite the setting and the ending that dares to go against the mould and the clear fun that imbues the tone of the novel, I couldn't say I was completely convinced: 2.5 stars rounded up.

Quotes:
Maybe children forget the omissions of their parents. Of course some tenacious memories linger on, occasionally taking hold, swelling and whispering unspeakable ideas of rebellion to the heart. But we have an essential instinct for amnesty – the urge to forgive our parents. It’s the only way that traumatized five-year-olds can get past three score years and ten without catatonic depression or expensive psychoanalysis.

So the whole of La Réunion knew, but no one spoke about it publicly. And despite this silence nobody thought about anything else from morning till night; taboos unfailingly create obsessions.

Her motto became: ‘Anything but solitude. Anything but staying here.’

Their gossiping was fuelled by jealousy: only their own happiness could possibly be authorized – they scoffed at the luck of others. Everyone, in reality, is only liked in proportion to their misfortune.

Those endless weddings, they were all different, yet all the same. They were all failures.

My own Dessaintes clan became too poor to remain honest, too proud to admit they were penniless. They were discreet people, even if they liked a gossip, and they loved watching TV for hours on end. They abided by the law when they had to, paid their taxes lest the bailiff should come knocking on their door. They complained a bit, as good French people do, but their knowledge of the world was delimited by their television screen. They possessed practical commonsense and some very basic reading and writing skills, which they sometimes put to the test while gazing into the daily newspaper at the headlines or the horse-racing reports, or at the crosswords section. As a result of all this, neither Monsieur nor Madame had an exceptional character, nor a mind creative enough to adapt itself to a happy and lasting life together.

With no one left for the Dessaintes to love, they gave in to their natural inclinations and worshipped their television screen as if it were their longed-for child. It was a match made in heaven: them and the TV. They spent this sad time watching news clips, monsters killing each other and serial murderers dismembering their victims.

School replaced my parents and taught me everything I needed to know about life.

I decided to become a writer (at the time I didn’t know they were all suicidal, neurotic, alcoholic megalomaniacs).

It left me an orphan even though my parents were still there.

One had to survive, though nobody had explained why.

Not far away lay an aunt who had been strangled out of love – and no doubt a touch of annoyance – one Friday evening when she had made the mistake of asking for the TV remote and a divorce.

And within two years, that scumbag of a cook opened his own snack bar and disappeared, stealing half of our kitchen utensils. But we couldn’t press charges because we’d stolen them ourselves – from the neighbouring school’s canteen.

So how will cases like mine be judged? Who’s worse: those who watch people make mistakes and do nothing to stop them or those who keep hanging on, who ignore the fact they live on a precipice and keep on trying anyway?

All the Dessaintes were in this traffic jam. On a huge roundabout with no exit. From morning to night, the entire island seems congested, trapped in a history beyond its understanding – stuck in a past, in a curse that still incapacitates La Réunion to this day. It’s as if the only force we have is inertia.

[Spyros Batzios · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intergenerational trauma that passes from one generation to the other, can feel like a vicious cycle, and unless someone from the descendants is brave enough to reflect, seek help and try to heal, then this cycle is really difficult to break. “There’s a Monster Behind the Door” by Gaëlle Bélem, is set in Réunion, a small island in the middle of Indian ocean that is a French overseas territory. There lives the Dessaintes family, raising their daughter using traditional myths and folk stories about monsters and mythical creatures and a single phrase in order to respond to every question coming from the curious brain of a child: “that’s the way it is and that’s that”. Our narrator, the daughter of the family, who is now a young woman, describes her life giving a glimpse of what their multigenerational trauma felt like and puts a lot of effort to escape her destiny through words and sentences, through writing literature. The big question is will she be able to break this trauma cycle? The answer is in the last pages of this book that definitely deserves to be read. The writing is simple with both tragic and comedy elements, and the story reads like a very vibrant and adventurous tale. I really liked the fact that it describes a part of our world that was completely unknown to me and opened a new window to get to know something I didn’t know before. Even though it reads very pleasantly, I thought that it lacked originality and despite the fact that the ending was beautiful I felt that the writer could give more substance to the story.

This is a book about intergenerational trauma and its effects on our mental health. How it can manifest and shape your life. About feeling insignificant, wanting to give up or run away from your life. A story about parenting, perfect and imperfect parents. Forceful language and neglect. Parents exercising their power over their kids and children that are satisfied with very little. Marriage as a way to escape your bleak reality, lover promises, unhappy marriages, ruined families, divorce and financial dependency. Childhood trauma, domestic violence and physical abuse. Being unwanted, forced to grow old or ashamed of your parents. A book about child brain and questioning. The why of everything and the need to feel that everything makes sense when you are a child. The fact that children are unaware of such things as deceit or suspicion, and they don’t even know that tales exist as for them everything is reality. Children’s faith and boundless love. Relying on the wisdom of your parents and smothering of a child’s curiosity. It is also a story about societal superstitions and submissive acceptance of realities. Gullible people that believe in any kind of taboo. Humiliation, resignation and guilt. Colonialism, slavery and insufferable circumstances of life. Racism and assimilation. Lives worth nothing at all and the constant feeling of fear and anxiety. Ideas of rebellion, the abolition of slavery, and equality. A book about the enjoyment of reading and the beauty of words and sentences. About becoming a writer and making your own stories. Mostly though this is a book about searching for a goal or meaning in life. Achieving a new dignity and imagining that somewhere else you can be loved and awaited. About the need to exist for somebody and creating a world to fit your dimensions. The role we are born to play in the society and people’s refusal to admit that you can be different to how they imagine you to be.


This is a 3-3.5/5 for me!


Why should you read “There’s a Monster Behind the Door”?

Because you will understand that the answer “that’s the way it is and that’s that”, is used only by people who either don’t know or don’t want to learn.
Because you will feel how weird it is to chose to intimidate your child rather that teach them.
Because you will recognize our innate need and instinct to forgive our parents and accept what they say as figures of authority.
Because you will accept that your parents’ indifference and bad parenting can act as an incentive to do better in life.
Because you will be surprised on the tricks fate is playing on us behind our backs.
Because you will acknowledge our need for unconditional love; this love that comes with no judgment from a person that knows our very true self and our darkest moments.
Because it will make you believe that redemption is possible and people can change; or can they not?


Favorite quotes:

“Perfect parents only exist in movies, but my silences, my nightmares and my fearful tears perhaps persuaded mine that they were, at least, excellent storytellers. So they hadn’t failed at everything in life”.

“Everyone, in reality, is only liked in proportion to their misfortune”.

“I have a book on my bedside table. Because I don’t have a gun”.

“Is burying something the same as forgetting it? And is forgetting forgiving?”.

“Who’s worse: those who watch people make mistakes and do nothing to stop them or those who keep hanging on, who ignore the fact they live on a precipice and keep on trying anyway?”

[victoria marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize

Winner of the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses, UK & Ireland

I have a book on my bedside table. Because I don't have a gun.
—112

*

’That's the way it is and that's that.'

*

I would not dwell where tempests never come for they bring beauty in their train.
—Thomas Cole

_____________________________________________

from the Translators’ Note, full of such helpful & amazing information!

There's a Monster Behind the Door is Gaëlle Bélem's first novel. It is also the first novel by a Reunionese woman writer to be published by French publishing giant Gallimard in their Continents noirs series. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the English translation of this novel seemed a timely and urgent enterprise. All the more so as Reunionese literature remains fairly unknown in the Anglophone world. Our translation therefore aims to introduce the English-speaking reader to a literature that deserves to be seen and heard.
Reunionese literature often destabilizes the French language through its strong oral, Creole component, known as kréol rényoné.

*

So they returned home - or in other words to hell. One ear less, one fleur-de-lis more.
—47

*

A photograph still bears witness to this. I am smiling, looking at the two faces bent over my crib. Father is smiling, thinking about the bets he would be placing over the next eighteen years.
My mother is smiling because she was taught to always smile back when people smile at her.
—61

*

'"Easy!" said Ratus, chewing on his cheese?’

I was speechless. Quick! Someone give me the name of the genius who invented writing - and such a line! I had to meet him and offer him some nougatine and sesame balls!
—70

*

I decided to become a writer (at the time I didn't know they were all suicidal, neurotic, alcoholic megalomaniacs). I would become a writer and recount the further adventures of the animals of Le Chaudron. I would become a writer and create magic - and this would infuriate my parents, those TV devotees. I was ready to rebel: there was just one obstacle left to overcome. I would need to learn to write.
—70

*

My parents detested me even more after that: I had revealed what went on behind closed doors. Hatred, hunger and blows as savage as the breakers of the Sud Sauvage were acceptable, but it was essential to keep up appearances. How others see you, the external signs of success, the flashy car - all these were sacred under the Tropic of Capricorn.
—85

*

That's life on La Réunion: it passes from sorrow to spells, from petty vengeance to great supplication, from offerings to prayers.
Poultry, citrons galets, colour portraits and handfuls of coarse salt secure your future much more effectively than any savings account.
In any case, once the dévinèr has been paid, there isn't much left to save - but better to try than die in doubt.
—95-6

*

I started out with nothing, except for my obsessive wish to rehabilitate Cain's race and the vice known as reading.

I read everything. Maupassant, Cicero, Hesse and Rostand. Süskind and Mirbeau. Loti, Melville, Seneca, Lautréamont, rebours, Lao She and Livy. Anything that could be used as a door wedge of paper weight. Anything that would otherwise be easy fuel when we ran low on candles on the night of a cyclone.
—112

*

I have a book on my bedside table. Because I don't have a gun.
—112

_____________

There's a Monster Behind the Door (2024) is the translation by Laëtitia Saint-Loubert and Karen
Fleetwood of Gaëlle Bélem's debut novel Un monstre est là, derrière la porte (2020).

the Press:
Bullaun Press has chosen literature in translation as its focus. It is the first such press of this kind in Ireland. We aspire to open up a space for readers seeking new and different voices. Founder Bridget Farrell's background in independent publishing and languages inspired her to set up Bullaun in 2021. She wants to see the press become an advocate for translators, especially Irish and Irish-based ones.

——-

the RoC judges' initial thoughts:
"A rollicking, sardonic picaresque set on the French outpost of La Réunion in the 1980s. The novel has important things to say about colonialism and society, but it's also tremendous fun - darkly funny, acerbic, energetic. There's scarcely a dull moment on the page, and the translation is remarkably slick."

the RoC judges’ comments after announcing it’s win:

Jude Cook: "There's a Monster Behind the Door is a compact, comic tour-de-force. It interrogates post-colonial legacies, domestic abuse and a young girl's rite of passage into adulthood with the lightest of touches. It takes us into an unfamiliar world and makes its polemical points effortlessly. It's all the more forceful for its comedic register, a mode that's rare, but equally welcome, in contemporary literary fiction. Perhaps the best way to communicate something serious is by making us laugh."

Houman Barekat: "A rollicking, sardonic picaresque set on the French outpost of La Réunion in the. 1980s. The novel has important things to say about colonialism and society, but it's also tremendous fun - darkly funny, acerbic, energetic. There's scarcely a dull moment on the page, and the translation is remarkably slick."

Alice Jolly: "An original, dark and funny story which enables us to inhabit a dysfunctional family and an equally troubled society. Bélem's tragi-comedy novel disrupts the tired trope of the trauma novel and is equally brutal in its critique of postcolonial narratives. The writing is lively, supple and vigorous. No character comes out of this book well - but the reader enjoys the journey and applauds the writer's bold attempts to grapple with some of the darker truths which lie at the heart of the human condition. The work of the translators who have brought this book to English speaking audiences must also be celebrated."

[Rachel Louise Atkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very, very cool book. There’s A Monster Behind The Door is a story about generational violence and self-destruction, but also self-acceptance and coming-of-age novel.

The unnamed narrator is the only daughter of the Dessaintes. What was once a passionate marriage has turned into a toxic, hate-fuelled loathing for each other, and the daughter can do nothing but absorb these intense, violent emotions she sees displayed from her parents. Between their addiction to horror films, where at six years old the narrator becomes accustomed to some very explicit body horror on a nightly basis and internalises this as her own rage, and their emotional and physical abuse of their daughter, she both attempts to navigate the world as a girl who wants to achieve, grow, learn and succeed, but also cannot seem to escape the violence that seems so wrapped up in her family’s DNA.

The writing was exquisite and I absolutely adored this narrator. She is an anti-hero, and we cheer on both her happiness and academic success and lust for violence. The balancing act, she discovers, is what has plagued the Dissaintes family for generations. She fantasises about killing those she is jealous of, perhaps imitating the movies her parents became so addicted to, but also exudes a desire to be nurtured, liked, and accepted by an adult in her life. I loved how we explored so much of her family history, whilst also focusing on her internal struggle if not knowing who to be and how to express the destruction and violence she so easily turns to.

It was also great to learn more about La Reunion as a country, as it’s not a place I have read from before. The translators note at the beginning was fantastic and I loved the inclusion of the footnotes to help immerse the reader into the world.

This was claustrophobic, violent, intense and a complete tour-de-force. But it has to be to reflect the sheer amount of pressure building up within the narrator and to demonstrate the tension of the duality. The novel ends by asking “is that how it’s going to end, then? With the same violence, the same deceit, the same injustice as the start?” In succumbing to a cyclical conclusion, the book really critiques the danger of generational violence and how this is kept in place not just by individuals but the systems that surround them. This was a really stunning piece of work.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5.
This coming-of-age tale, recent winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize - also longlisted for the International Booker - is well worth the read for its funny, original and ironic narrator, and the rich and fascinating depiction of life on Reunion. I have to admit, though I'd heard of this place, I had to Google it to know where it was - and there was plenty more research I did along the way, as I got to grips with this incredibly interesting place.

I felt like the actual narrative was a bit chaotic at times and struggled for something to pull the whole thing through the end, but I'm very glad to have read it and this is exactly the kind of book you hope to find from such prize lists.

[Read By RodKelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

Told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator recounting her youth in the 1980s as the daughter of the embittered and destitute Dessaintes family, There’s a Monster Behind the Door presents a world where abuse and cruelty are normalized and children are conditioned to accept suffering as their natural inheritance.

The Dessaintes, like so many others, are caught in the inertia of a past they cannot outrun, a cycle of poverty and learned inferiority passed down through generations, “lashed away, generation after generation, with violent blows of the whip.”

The novel moves fluidly between the history of the narrator’s own family and the broader history of La Réunion itself, expanding to encompass the social and economic forces that shape the island before contracting to focus on the narrator’s intense struggle for survival.

At the heart of this struggle is the narrator’s desperate, unfulfilled need for parental love. Her father, raised in the complacency of a pampered childhood, is utterly unprepared for the demands of adult life, believing that “men were born to pass the day in a rocking chair” while women should bear the burden of labor.

Her mother, the eleventh of twelve children in a household where only the first and last were cherished, carries the deep wounds of her own upbringing and perpetuates its cruelties.

The narrator, acutely aware of her position as an unwanted child, oscillates between pity and resentment, recognizing that her parents “were from a separate race that dwelled at the very bottom of the cesspool.”

Books become her truest refuge. “The mere sight of a book was enough to make the Dessaintes’ hair stand on end,” she observes, a fact that makes her love of reading all the more transgressive. Writing, too, becomes an act of survival, a means of asserting control over a chaotic world.

There’s a Monster Behind the Door examines the crushing weight of history while celebrating the resilience of those who refuse to be defeated by it. Its brilliant narrator, unbroken despite her endless suffering, stands as a testament to the power of storytelling to bear witness, to resist, and ultimately, to escape.

[Mau (Maponto Lee) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"There's a Monster Behind the Door" de Gaëlle Bélem es una novela que, desde sus primeras páginas, sacude y seduce con una voz narrativa tan feroz como encantadora. Ambientada en la isla de La Réunion durante los años 80, esta obra picaresca y tragicómica nos presenta a una niña sin nombre que crece en el seno de una familia disfuncional, los Dessaintes, marcada por la violencia, la superstición y el desencanto. A través de su mirada aguda y su humor mordaz, la narradora nos guía por un mundo donde los monstruos no solo se esconden detrás de las puertas, sino que habitan en los rincones más íntimos del hogar y la sociedad.

La protagonista, una niña precoz y observadora, encuentra en la lectura y la escritura un refugio frente al caos de su entorno. Sus padres, adictos a las películas de terror y a las historias espeluznantes, utilizan el miedo como herramienta de control, creando un ambiente opresivo y surrealista. Sin embargo, lejos de ser una víctima pasiva, la narradora desarrolla una voz propia, cargada de ironía y lucidez, que le permite cuestionar y resistir las dinámicas familiares y sociales que la rodean.

Los personajes secundarios, como los miembros de la extensa familia Dessaintes, están retratados con una mezcla de caricatura y realismo que resalta sus contradicciones y miserias. A través de ellos, Bélem pinta un fresco de una sociedad postcolonial atrapada entre la tradición y la modernidad, donde las heridas del pasado colonial siguen abiertas y sangrantes.

La novela aborda temas como el colonialismo, la violencia doméstica, la pobreza y la búsqueda de identidad, todo ello envuelto en una prosa vibrante y llena de humor negro. Los símbolos y motivos recurrentes, como los monstruos, las supersticiones y las referencias a la cultura popular, enriquecen la narrativa y ofrecen múltiples capas de interpretación.

Uno de los logros más destacados de la novela es su capacidad para abordar temas complejos y dolorosos sin caer en el melodrama, manteniendo un equilibrio entre la crítica social y la narración entretenida. Sin embargo, el tono sarcástico y la estructura no lineal requieren una atención y sensibilidad especiales para apreciar plenamente la profundidad de la obra.

Recomendada para lectores interesados en la literatura postcolonial, las historias de crecimiento personal y las narrativas que desafían las convenciones, esta novela ofrece una visión única de La Réunion y sus complejidades culturales e históricas. El contexto en el que se escribió, marcado por las tensiones entre la herencia colonial y la identidad local, es fundamental para comprender la riqueza y la relevancia de la obra.

[evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

That’s the way it is and that’s that!

What a phenomenal debut. There’s A Monster Behind The Door is a riot. i can’t remember the last time i had so much fun with a book: it made me laugh out loud, it tugged on my heart strings, and it taught me a lot about La Réunion, a French overseas colony in the Indian Ocean.

The novel commences with a bang as we’re immersed into La Réunion in the 1980s, where our unnamed narrator reflects on the Dessaintes’ cruel methods of parenting. From telling her she’d grow an orange tree in her stomach for eating the pips or that she’d remain small for climbing onto the table, our narrator regards her parents as ‘horrible Creole versions of the monosyllabic Bartleby coupled with that nutcase Lovecraft’. 😭

Unraveling the extent to which parents in rue Descartes torment their children—although the children later grow up to perpetuate this cycle—the hysterical family dynamics in rue Descartes elicit more than what meets the eye.

Amidst the humour of these passages, Bélem exhibits an implicit portrait of the lingering effects of colonialism; its many facets and the ways in which the characters of the novel have internalised and been transformed by the legacies of their enslaved ancestors. Is our unnamed narrator able to go against the fate that has been imposed on her within this post-colonial landscape?

i was absolutely taken aback by the breadth and depth this novel covers within its page count. i immensely enjoyed the translator’s note: hearing about their collaborative work and the decisions they considered when translating this post-colonial body of work from french into english, what is, another colonial language. Fleetwood and Saint-Loubert opted in for a translingual approach, peppering the text with the original Creole and footnotes throughout—i loved it!

This was my first time encountering Reunionese literature, and it certainly won’t be the last— i’m very grateful for this year’s IBP for putting this on my radar. 10/10 from me!!!

[Daily_debby · Rating 2 out of 5]

J’ai beaucoup et peu de choses à dire sur ce roman.

Disons que la famille Dessaintes a beau être machiavélique elle n'a pas pour autant attisé ma curiosité.

➕️ D'un côté :

- Il y a des scènes totalement délirantes qui m'ont fait rire.
- On voit une île de La Réunion loin des décors de carte postale.
- On découvre l'enfance d'une enfant non désirée.

➖️ MAIS (et ça a son importance) :

- Quid de l'évolution du personnage ? Ou j'ai peut être juste pas compris quel était son objectif …
- Where is la nuance ?!? On tombe un peu trop facilement dans le cliché les pauvres sont cons, violents et se complaisent dans leur médiocrité.

Mais bon, bonne nouvelle, pour me rassurer de mon amour pour les récits d'enfance, je fonce lire Maryse Condé.

[liv (≧▽≦) · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a book that's only 176 pages long.. it was a SLOG to get through.
I get it, it's about intergenerational trauma, abuse and the cycle it causes - as well as the link between poverty and abuse, but it was just bad. Nothing about this book kept my attention; the writing was so bland and BORING. The setting was interesting but that wasn't talked about much, the concept and themes are equally interesting and deserve more conversation in mainstream media but this book did not do those themes justice. Such predictable plot as well - smart girl grows up with abuse, gets stuck into school and wants to escape, ends up exactly like her parents. OVER IT. Boring. Bland. I was just skimming to get it finished by the end.

No quotes, literally none at all.

[endrju · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a book on my bedside table. Because I don't have a gun. p. 112.

A novel of voice. Irreverent, ironic, electric, bitter and biting to the bone, exposing all the lives and lies of Réunion island society.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a Monster Behind the Door keeps up the theme of this year’s IB Longlist where personal lives are entwined with a country’s history.
In this case it’s an offbeat coming of age story. The narrator is a girl who tries to break free from her dysfunctional family. The setting is the island of Réunion during the 80’s.
Throughout the book the narrator talks about how reading and having a zest for life helps her escape her strange parents. As she delves deeper into her family’s ancestors we readers see the effects of colonialism on a nation.
The prose is quite funny at times and the narrator’s voice is memorable. When an author manages to disguise quite a few horrors using this tone, you know you have something great here.

[Christopher Walthorne · Rating 2 out of 5]

An uninteresting poverty porn story from a writer who’s desperately straining to be witty and clever, further hampered by redundant footnotes (two particularly patronising ones explain the meaning behind ‘sacrificial goat’ and tell us what a dodo is) and a translation that feels academic at best, lifeless at worst.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5 I received a pdf file from the UK publisher. Very excited for the US to publish this one (2026?!)

What I loved
- the writing style blends pain and humor very well. The way the author writes about trauma yet still finds a way to make me chuckle without making light of the heaviness of it all is very well done
- the narrative voice is so unique and captivating. even though the narrator might do something questionable, I couldn’t help but root for her and want her to achieve all her wildest dreams and darkest fantasies 🤣
- i love how the author explores generational trauma through a unwise narrative voice and angle that doesn’t read like it’s trauma porn. The angle of escape and healing is equally fascinating

What didn’t work for me
- this is perhaps a bit bit picky, but how “time” passes in the novel isn’t linear and doesn’t make a lot of sense to me 😅 like sometimes the narrator will just jump years ahead and (imo) leave interesting events, and other times talk about mundane things in detail

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved the beginning of this one, because the narrative tone hits you in the face and just keeps on going. There's a bit of a fairytale feel to it, and I really liked the translation - so much so that I'm really curious to read it in the original French and compare.

After a really strong beginning the narrative loses tension though and the clear idea of who the protagonist is fades. I still liked it, but it took quite a while to read on as it dragged a bit.

The ending was on point again, leaving me with an impressive but slightly uneven experience. I really like this IB nomination for Gaëlle Bélem, and I am really intrigued by a book about a place and experience I have never read about before.

[Marie Ryon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"That's how the beast is born: alone, wounded, already in agony. Lugging along her pain and an eternal urge to do battle, she is animated by a single breath - despair."

[Paul Dembina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The narrator is a young woman living (or maybe existing?) on the France's Indian Ocean island of Reunion. She tells of her upbringing with (at best) negligent and (at worst) abusive, parents. The narrative style is jokey, tongue-in-cheek humour which mostly works well, although I'm not sure it does for those parts of the story where our heroine is being badly treated.

Still, mostly a fun read

[Sharanya Perez · Rating 3 out of 5]

C’était marrant, mais je sais pas si j’ai compris la fin

[Natasha den Dekker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim from my local Waterstones for 2 reasons -

1. I love reading accessible translated works (1000 Years of Solitude was not the one for me!)
2. It's set La Reunion which is a stone's throw from my family's birthplace of Mauritius so a lot of the cultural touchpoints (carri, rougaille) were things that I grew up with that I don't get to see in a lot of books (remember there are only 3-4 countries in the world for most publishing houses).

It's a stream of consciousness piece which...takes some getting used to. But it's sharp, sad and mildly shocking at points BUT so so well written and translated. The story depicts her childhood (awful) her teen years (mildly awful), brief moments where things are ok (super brief), when it's going well and then finally when it goes absolutely and totally pear shaped. The knock-on effect of colonialism, indentured workers is felt throughout the book if not referred to by name and it's just sad to see how lack of investment in their overseas territories (Reunion is a French DOM) impacts the lives of entire families.

Her life is full of consistent letdowns by the people around her and she still manages to keep going. It's not...an easy book to read, no one's likable etc. But it's very much a slice of life of a culture that doesn't tend to get much airtime.

Really recommend if you fancy something different but covers universal themes.

[Saga Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful, tragic and funny little look into life in La Réunion, litterd with snippets of its history. It fell apart a little bit for me right at the end, but will be reading more Bélem for sure. She has a talent for writing on serious matters in a way that stil made me laugh out loud, without losing the gravity of the topic.

[Alice Tremblay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tant de grands mots pour raconter si peu.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This multi generational life story tracked the violence and abuses experienced by our narrator. On the whole I enjoyed the unfolding of the story, but the writing style was not for me and sometimes felt oddly frigid for a book exploring those deemed so lowly.

I am glad I read it, but not my favourite of the International Booker novels I have read so far.

I rated this 3.25 on Story Graph which is a cool non-Amazon affiliated alternative to Good Reads. Follow me there!

[Annikky · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 This didn’t quite live up to its potential for me. Rounded up for the setting.

[Em · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to get into one

[Bianca R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great narative voice, memorable quotes, superb prose 6/5 stars.
The plot makes sense in the end but throughout the book I had no idea where she was going with the point.
overall interesting idk why I didn’t love it more

[Wendy(Wendyreadsbooks) Robey · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Intriguing read exposing all the flaws of life on Reunion Island.
One of my first translated fiction reads and an interesting one to start with. this hold back nothing on the trials and tribulations of life and is a viewpoint on characters and the impact on the island

[Zhou · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up; really enjoyed this one more than I expected. It did get a bit draggy in the middle but the ending was wrapped up nicely. This is my 6th WIT month book and every one has been a hit so far.

I love it when people write about suffering with humour. I dog-eared this book so much I had to double dog-ear some pages on the flip side. (Yes I'm the criminal dog-ear reader. I dog-ear to mark good pages worth revisiting)

!Minor spoiler ahead!

One afternoon, on my return from school, I saw my father at the kitchen door. He told me that he was going out on an errand, unhurriedly collected his wallet and the picture of his favourite horse, and walked out without looking back. He never returned. Except for his passport, nothing was gone from his drawers. His clothes, pale and discoloured, seemed to have retained only vague and contrasting memories of their owner – just like I had. When Mother understood, on the following day at around midnight, that he would probably not be coming home for dinner, she turned the house upside down. I thought she suspected him of being there, hidden somewhere between the fridge and the stove. Hysterical, and emboldened by her anguish, she shunted all the large furniture from one place to another. I felt I had to how some solidarity and started inspecting small appliances and the tableware. I lifted the teapot, turned back the bed sheets and rugs. I even checked the keyholes, plugholes and flower pots, always coming to the same worrying conclusion. Father was not in the toolbox, nor was he in the laundry basket!

Anyone who comes from a dysfunctional family would find some comfort in reading some universal shared experiences in this book. The constant fighting, daily affirmations that always carried a bite (i.e. affirmations that you are worth less than a dog), the bedbugs, the bitter air that permeates the stuffy apartment akin to a minefield. It was heartbreaking yet very consoling for me.

From the marketplace to the corner shop, from the river to the betting shop where she went looking for my father, she would stroll about as round as a barrel, carrying a tiny resident who was completely unaware of the kind of chaos it would be born into. And, in due course, a child fell from their crooked tree.

Thankfully in the recent years there has been more talk of intergenerational trauma, passed down for god knows how many centuries as 'tradition' (otherwise known as illogical practices that you are not allowed to question) and 'a part of life', and I don't think there has been any generation made more aware of this cursed inheritance than ours. To be able to identify the rotten root, and then see it manifest in yourself as a tiny branch of the family tree, is an enlightening yet terribly agonising journey.

This drama hammered home just how useless my existence was. So there was nothing to live for, not even my sweet little face and curly hair? I was nothing but a burden? From that point, what makes you carry on is not really any form of desire, but a more basic instinct for life in its humblest sense.

Anyway. Enough of depressing talk! The novel also offers a good introduction to Reunionese culture, their religion, language and especially their food (I also did not expect a mention of Vishnu). I could almost see a tiny glimpse of Singapore in there. Another postcolonial little island with a mixed demographic. It's always fun to read about some lesser known regions in the world.

From time to time, I left Salazie to go to Saint-André, or Saint Denis, or more rarely Saint-Paul. But never to Saint-Benoît. It's almost as if the smaller the island is, the more sedentary you become – like Bouchot mussels.

No context food (non-exhaustive):
-cherry guava jelly
-fish carri, chicken masala, bean stew, jasmine rice served with a green chilli puree and a salad of lettuce sitting in a pool of white vinegar and sunflower oil
-a piece of cake – a bizarre confection of of liquorice syrup, soursop puree, preserved loquats, creamed red kuri squash, salted jackfruit and caramelised jujube
-pilchards in tomato sauce (British sardines)
-out-of-date chocolate
-white rice that reeked of cockroaches and bedbugs
-three-sauce sandwiches; pain bouchon, pain américain, pain dakatine, pain carri
- glucose-saturated fizzy drinks of cornflower-blue, blush-pink or lemon-yellow
-barquettes, plastic tubs filled with a thick layer of plain rice covered with beans and some kind of carri – chicken, pork, fish or goat at best; at worst, things that are best left unsaid

[The Flying Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my favorite March book! Gaelle’s voice is so unique, tragic but humorous! I felt myself reflected in her words, often pondering on how children of parents “who have nothing to offer but their own terror” process things the same way, or in shapes that intersect.

While we get to watch the Dessainte’s reign of tragedy, we hear a voice of a girl, an an intimate portrayal of a legacy that struggles to come up for air, of generations of slaves brought to La Reunion (a French overseas department - weird right?), who have forcibly learn the inevitability of their condition, of poverty and despair.

Our protagonist, retells her childhood and teen years with dread, sarcasm and a defiance you can tell has boundaries. There’s generational violence, rage and terror: I can’t let go of this idea her parents put into her head, that if she would eat orange sips an orange tree would grow inside her… “That’s the way it is, and that’s that!”

I can’t imagine what must be like, to have your culture, country and even your own skin, taken away from you. To be forced to live in an existence, where religion and myth and trauma emerge to justified the loss of strength and hope for a future -“lashed away, generation after generation, with violent blows of the whip”. Gaelle rarely provides hope, the pit gets darker and bottomless, and all the more difficult to climb.

Our protagonist fights, she’s pushing back all the time, and her biggest weapons and defiant acts, reside in her reading and writing, her excelling in school, her breaking the Dessainte’s curse! But will she?

I’m absolutely in awe with her writing, and had a blast with this emotional, funny, and at times hard to digest novel. I can’t wait to read more from her!

If you’re interested in generational trauma, in post-colonial contexts and “coming of age” tropes - a tragic-com setting, this one is for you!