Published in 2022 (first published 2019)
144 pages
Nathacha Devi Pathareddy Appanah is a Mauritian-French author. She comes from a traditional Indian family. She spent most of her teenage years in Mauritius and also worked as a journalist/columnist at Le Mauricien and Week-End Scope before emigrating to France.
Since 1998, Nathacha Appanah is well-known as an active writer. Her first book Les Rochers de Poudre d’Or (published by Éditions Gallimard) received the ” Prix du Livre RFO”. The book was based on the arrival of Indian immigrants in Mauritius. She also wrote two other books Blue Bay Palace and La Noce d’Anna which also received some prizes for best book in some regional festivals in France. In 2007, she released her fourth book “Le Dernier Frère” Ed de L’Olivier. This book won the Prix FNAC.
What is this book about?
Once upon a time there was a boy whose mother called him “Wolf”
She thought this name would bring him strength, luck, natural authority, but how could she know that this boy would grow up to be the gentlest and strangest of sons and that he would end up captured like a wild animal
There he is now, in the back of a police van, as we turn the page
It all begins with a crash.
One night, seventeen-year-old Wolf steals his mother’s car and drives six hundred kilometres in search of his sister, who left home ten years ago. Unlicensed and on edge, he veers onto the wrong side of the road and causes an accident. He is arrested, imprisoned, and leaves his mother and sister to pick up the pieces.
What follows is an unflinching account of the events that lead to this moment, told through the alternating perspectives of Wolf’s mother, sister and various other voices. In this raw and poignant novel, Nathacha Appanah reveals how trauma shapes generations and the wounds it leaves behind. The Sky Above the Roof is both a portrait of a fractured family and a poetic exploration of the ways we break apart and rebuild.