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Biographical note
Nicolas Mathieu was born in 1978 in Épinal, a small town in north-eastern France. After studying history and cinema, he moved to Paris, where he worked variously as a scriptwriter, a news editor, a private tutor, and a temp at City Hall. His first novel, Of Fangs and Talons, won the Erckmann-Chatrian prize, the Transfuge prize and the critics' award at the Prix Mystère. His second novel, And Their Children After Them, was published to universal acclaim in 2018 and won various prizes including the most coveted prize in France, the Prix Goncourt. He lives in Nancy.Before Nicolas Mathieu won the Prix Goncourt in 2018 for <i>And Their Children After Them </i>he wrote this <b>remarkable novel</b> about two small-town scallies who resort to crime when the local factory closes down . . . Mathieu, a wonderful writer,<b> echoes the grittiness and compassion of Émile Zola in <i>Germinal</i></b>
Sunday Times
There are several intersecting stories in this <b>bleakly uncompromising portrait of working-class life </b>in the Vosges . . . this tale of helpless, resentful people with nothing to lose is <b>powerful and compelling</b>.
- Laura Wilson, Guardian
Award-winning novelist Nicolas Mathieu portrays how the destruction of working-class communities has fed cynicism and despair.
- Conrad Landin, Jacobin Magazine
A first novel of rare power
Le Figaro Littéraire
Nicolas Mathieu has written one of the best crime novels of the year
Le Monde
Powerful and compelling' Guardian
'Mathieu, a wonderful writer, echoes the grittiness and compassion of Émile Zola in Germinal' Sunday Times
After the closure of a small-town factory is announced, the local community is hit by the prospect of mass unemployment. With nothing left to lose, the desperate workers take matters into their own hands. Martel, a former trade union rep, and Bruce, a bodybuilder on steroids, resort to extreme measures. And after an attempted kidnapping goes horribly wrong, they are dragged into a spiraling frenzy of crime.
In the political tradition of Balzac and Zola, Of Fangs and Talons announces Nicolas Mathieu as one of the most urgent contemporary voices in French literature.
'Nicolas Mathieu has written one of the best crime novels of the year'
Le Monde