To Place a Rabbit

De: Madhur Anand

Narrado por: Kimberly Huie

A witty, irresistible debut novel from award-winning poet Madhur Anand about entangled desire in books, life and love.

This delightfully clever, artfully layered novel begins when a scientist who has written a popular book of non-fiction attends a literary festival, where she strikes up a friendship with a charismatic novelist. The novelist reveals that her new work is an experiment: a novella she wrote in English only to have it translated and published solely in French—a language the novelist cannot read. Moreover, she has lost her original English manuscript of this work. Hearing this, the scientist, who is fluent in French, impulsively offers to retranslate the novella back into English for the novelist.

As she embarks on this task, the scientist finds herself haunted by vivid memories and distracting questions—particularly about a passionate affair from her own life with a French lover. These insert themselves into her translation process, troubling it, then disrupting it entirely. She desperately tries to complete her task before losing control of both the work and her well-organized existence—but soon the novelist and the French lover reappear in the present, further complicating both life and art.

Here is sparkling, irresistible debut fiction from one of our most consistently inventive voices, the award-winning and multi-talented Madhur Anand.

©2025 Madhur Anand (P)2025 Knopf Canada

Reseñas de la Crítica

"In its elegant language, intellectual inquiry and emotionally vivid characters and situations, To Place a Rabbit reminded me of the work of Deborah Levy. Smart, and delightful to read . . . an accomplished and thoughtful fiction debut." —Shyam Selvadurai

"To Place a Rabbit is, more than anything, an unconventional love story. A contemplative yet thrilling waking-dream of a novel that has the potency to melt and meld time, language, life, art, and human connection. The kind of reading experience I often seek but rarely find." —Iain Reid

"An inventive and richly imaginative meditation on the art of translation. Madhur Anand's debut novel is accomplished and impressive." —Helen Humphreys