A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre

A quintessential early novel about an intense
friendship, by the winner of the 2020 Prix Goncourt
de la nouvelle

A Leopard-Skin Hat may be the French writer Anne Serre’s most moving
novel yet. Hailed in Le Point as a “masterpiece of simplicity, emotion and
elegance,” it is the story of an intense friendship between “the Narrator” and
his close childhood friend, Fanny, who suffers from profound psychological
disorders. A series of short scenes paints the portrait of a strong-willed and
tormented young woman battling many demons, and of the narrator’s loving
and anguished attachment to her. Anne Serre poignantly depicts the bewildering back and forth between hope and despair involved in such a relationship,
while playfully calling into question the very form of the novel. Written in the
aftermath of the death of the author’s little sister, A Leopard-Skin Hat is both
the celebration of a tragically foreshortened life and a valedictory farewell,
written in Anne Serre’s signature style.
Praise for Anne Serre:
“Genuinely original—and, often, very quietly so.”
—PARUL SEHGAL, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“Wry, unconventional.” —THE NEW YORKER
“Putting down one of Anne Serre’s books is like coming up for air.”
—LUCIE ELVEN, LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS

A quintessential early novel about an intense
friendship, by the winner of the 2020 Prix Goncourt
de la nouvelle
The author of fourteen books, ANNE SERRE was born in 1960. Her work has been
acclaimed here as “hypnotic, enchanting” (Publishers Weekly), “tight and fabulist”
(Full Stop), and ”strange and beguiling” (Kirkus). MARK HUTCHINSON’s many
translations include René Char’s Hypnos: Notes from the French Resistance and The
Inventors and Other Poems.

PBK NDP 1574
FICTION SEPTEMBER
4½ X 7¼" 112pp
ISBN 978-0-8112-3451-1
EBK 978-0-8112-3452-8
48 CQ TERRITORY A
US $15.95