Virtue and Rosalind
Anne Serre author Mark Hutchinson translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
Publishing:5th Nov '26
£14.99
This title is due to be published on 5th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
From the 2025 International Booker shortlisted author comes a witty, dizzying novel of life as it is lived, of art and memory, perhaps even a self-portrait of the author herself Plt;pPgt;Plt;iPgt;Virtue and RosalindPlt;/iPgt; is where our wildest dreams come true. That popular, but not very brilliant, author whoP#8217;s winning all the prizes? Our writer-protagonist will bump her off. Uncle Henri who walked off during a family picnic and never came back? Rather than blame him, she admires his will to radically renounce the past for a woman in a red skirt, revisiting the picnic site like sacred ground.Plt;BRPgt;Plt;BRPgt;But our heroine has more to accomplish on her present course, which glimmers at every turn with material for new characters, new novels. Central to this are her relationships with other women, who she regards as the finest and most meticulous lacemakers: absorbed in what theyP#8217;re doing, creating something rather beautiful. They share her love of art P#8211; and of keeping an ample distance away from all the rest. After all, our darkest secrets live in the family.Plt;BRPgt;Plt;BRPgt;International Booker shortlistee Anne Serre reaffirms herself a master of literary form and innovation. Reading her, we read a hundred books at once. At first we might not recognise ourselves in this dazzling hall of mirrors, but by the end of it, we know just who we are.Plt;/pPgt;
A novel that is incredibly rich, yet imbued with lightness; its movement not linear, but impressionistic. A pleasure to read, and later, to think about -- Amina Cain, author of My New Face
Virtue and Rosalind is enthralling in the leaps it takes through fashion, friendships, and literary forebears. At once bewildering and intimate, this is a book that feels like a treasured friend. I cannot stop thinking about it -- Charlotte Shevchenko Knight, author of Food for The Dead
Betting on the Nobel Prize is a risky errand, but Serre feels like an increasingly decent bet . . . She does more in 100 words than most writers do in 10,000. This tale of a woman’s love of art and life marks another success -- Best Books for 2026 * The Telegraph *
This book is like an enchanted castle. Speaking of her craft, Jane Austen said she worked on little pieces of ivory with a brush of extreme finesse. Anne Serre must have found that magic brush again at a flea market * Le Canard enchaîné *
With Serre, there is neither autofiction, nor autobiography, nor confession, nor historical novel, only fiction – pure fiction – and fantasy, in the manner of Franz Kafka or Robert Walser, whom she counts among her masters * Le Figaro littéraire *
A tribute to friendship, a stroll among beloved authors, and a poetic work of art in itself – sustained by an irony and wit that never let up * Le Temps *
Anne Serre observes life with intelligence and ingenuity, turning everyday facts into a source of delight, often bound up with the unexpected turns in her stories. Her writing is deeply controlled, and her surprising endings give enormous meaning to the whole * France Culture *
It is very rare for lightness to be a literary merit, for it not to rhyme with superficiality. But if we understand the word as Walter Benjamin does when he speaks of the heartbreaking, unshakable, inhuman ‘superficiality’ of Robert Walser’s characters returned from madness, we may come closer to the secret of Anne Serre’s writing. Her playful practice of literature is an art of detachment * Le Monde des livres *
Anne Serre is a great writer, and this text is one of her finest * ELLE *
Strangely unsettling and spellbinding * Livres Hebdo *
ISBN: 9780241826348
Dimensions: 216mm x 135mm x 20mm
Weight: 300g
128 pages