Spotlight: Grave, by Laure Gouraige

Today, French Press celebrates Grave (Éditions Les Intranquilles), the new book by Laure Gouraige, 2026 laureate of the Jules Verne Writing Residency in the Midwest.

It all begins with the death of a cat, after eighteen years of shared life. A grief some might call “trivial,” because it doesn’t fit the accepted order of sorrows…

But what becomes of grief when we don’t dare give it its rightful place?

In Grave, Laure Gouraige sets out precisely to give literary form to this sorrow. She questions our relationship with animals, with attachment and loss, but also the unspoken hierarchies that decide which kinds of pain deserve to be told.

“Writing Grave meant agreeing not to be reasonable.”

A book that reminds us that literature can also make room for what we have learned to see as too slight, too intimate, or too unreasonable to be expressed.

Congratulations to Laure Gouraige on a book as moving as it is singular.