La Dentellière

La Dentellière ("The Lacemaker") is a French novel by Pascal Lainé. It was awarded the Prix Goncourt (France's most prestigious literary award) in 1974. It was made into a film with Isabelle Huppert in 1977 (directed by Claude Goretta). It was translated into English by George Crowther in 1976 as A Web of Lace and in 2006 by David Dugan. An excerpt of the 2006 translation appeared in the literary journal The Dirty Goat in 2008. In simple, precise language, Pascal Lainé paints his character's portrait in her original setting: "She was like one of those genre paintings where the subject is captured in mid-movement. Her way, for example, of pursing hairpins in her lips as she redid her hair bun! She was The Laundress, The Water Girl, or The Lacemaker."