Nicolas Matthew is known as the French "contemporary Zola". In 2014, he published his debut novel, Animal Wars, which won the Prize for Criticism of Reasoning. In 2018, matthew won the Goncourt Prize for Literature for the children after them. The Shanghai Translation Publishing House recently launched his two works.
Animal Wars is a wonderful group portrait novel about a world that is coming to an end and those who have lost their dependence and have nothing. Winner of the French Prize for Criticism of Reasoning, the TV series of the same name aired on French television channel 3 in November 2018. The novel revolves around a dying factory in the foggy Vosges mountains of northeastern France, focusing on the lives of young and middle-aged people in small towns. In the old industrial areas of the post-industrial era, the enthusiasm, dreams, and even anger that once excited life are extinguished. Two desperate workers are determined to go to Strasbourg for the kidnapping of the local gang leader. Female inspectors at the Labour and Social Security Inspectorate saw running out of the forest on a winter evening. The new generation of young boys and girls in the town seems to have endless energy and desire to vent, they want to leave, but there is nowhere to go... The maiden, the Colt45 pistol, the Blizzard road closure, and finally, all the clues are linked...
The Literature of Figaro called it "a debut with rare power." His maturity is impressive... With him, black fiction has found its color again."
"The Children Behind Them", winner of the 2018 French Goncourt Literary Prize, tells the story of the growth of two teenagers in the Lorraine region of eastern France. Four summers, four moments, from "Youthful Spirit" to the 1998 World Cup in France, tell the story of this double-sided France sandwiched between the city and the development zone. This is not only a story of the growth of a teenager, but also a story of the times, Nikolai? In a very subtle way, Matthew touches on the plight of teenagers in the era of globalization, while puncturing the Western world's lies about equal opportunities.
The French magazine Mariana commented that "the idea of the novel does not go beyond the text, and the message conveyed does not overwhelm the rhythm." He turned literature into a fighting match, and only words accurate enough can better reproduce the balance of power between people... A great work, where the little pleasure of the wind blowing through the skin is enough to make us forget the countless reasons for sorrow."
Editor: Jiang Chuting