Une bête à ton tour, by Anna Haillot

Une bête à ton tour (2026), Anna Haillot’s first novel, Éditions Les Avrils, 240 pages

In language as striking as it is organic, the author takes apart the alienating, annihilating mechanisms of the factory: their violence, their absurdity, the inhumanity of the working conditions and of the bosses.

Daily life when your only horizon is the Zone: the omnipresent noise, the repetition, bodies exploitable at will, dispossessed, worn down, poisoned, the erasure of the self in service of an infernal production line where every failing cog threatens all the workers, the lack of consideration, the lack of protection, the loss of meaning.

And then, the light in spite of everything, against all odds: family, friends, animals, photography, space, poetry, life.

A brilliant first novel of the literary season that turned my stomach inside out.