Grey Souls

Philippe Claudel · 2003 CE · Novel · French · Contemporary

In a small town just behind the front in the winter of 1917, a ten-year-old girl is found strangled. Years afterward a policeman who worked on the case tells it again, and what he leaves unsaid begins to matter as much as the crime. Claudel sets a provincial murder against the distant slaughter of the war; the novel won the Prix Renaudot in 2003.

Open Grey Souls in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Attributes

Closest analogues

• The Sentimentalists
  Johanna Skibsrud · 2009 CE · Novel

  60% · 13 shared
  NovelWarGuilt & ConscienceWar & ViolenceLoss of InnocenceDeath & MortalityMemory & TimeContemporaryEverymanMysteryvs SelfRealistElegiac
• Dora Bruder
  Patrick Modiano · 1997 CE · Narrative Non-fiction

  56% · 13 shared
  MysteryHistoricalWar & ViolenceLoss of InnocenceMemory & TimeContemporaryInnocentMysteryvs Societyvs SelfRealistElegiacFrench
• The Gathering
  Anne Enright · 2007 CE · Novel

  53% · 13 shared
  NovelGuilt & ConscienceLoss of InnocenceDeath & MortalityMemory & TimeContemporaryEverymanMysteryConfessionvs Societyvs SelfRealistElegiac
• The Kindly Ones
  Jonathan Littell · 2006 CE · Novel

  51% · 13 shared
  NovelWarHistoricalGuilt & ConscienceWar & ViolenceJustice & RevengeContemporaryConfessionThe Battlefieldvs Societyvs SelfRealistFrench
• Fault Lines
  Nancy Huston · 2006 CE · Novel

  51% · 12 shared
  NovelHistoricalGuilt & ConscienceWar & ViolenceLoss of InnocenceMemory & TimeContemporaryInnocentvs Societyvs SelfRealistFrench
• Shoah
  Claude Lanzmann · 1985 CE · Film

  51% · 11 shared
  HistoricalGuilt & ConscienceWar & ViolenceDeath & MortalityMemory & TimeContemporaryEverymanvs SocietyRealistElegiacFrench