Jean-Baptiste Andrea: My Queen

The impressive French debut novel *My Queen* has been published by Open Books. Jean-Baptiste Andrea, a former film director, has been recognized for his significant presence as a novelist through this work, winning various literary awards in addition to his reputation as a film director. His future endeavors are drawing attention, as his 2021 full-length novel *The Devil and the Saints* won the Grand Prix RTL-Lire, a major French literary award. This novel is a short story set during a midsummer vacation in 1965, in which the narrator, an adolescent boy named "I," experiences the most intense emotional change of his life for the first time after meeting a girl named Vivian. "I," the son of a family running a dilapidated gas station in a remote, secluded part of Provence, France, has dropped out of school and lives to help his parents, but one day he decides to run away from home. This decision comes after he overhears a conversation in which his parents mention the idea of sending him to an "institution." Hearing his parents’ passing grumble that they "can no longer keep that big kid around," he vows that "this is the very opportunity to prove I am an adult," and resolves to go to the battlefield (presumably the Algerian War of Independence) featured daily on the news to win a medal. After packing his bags and running away, he wanders through the mountains for several days before losing consciousness. How much time has passed? When he opens his eyes, a girl is looking at him. Her name is Vivian, and for the next few days, Vivian comes into the mountains to find him, bringing food and necessary items; thus, the two become friends and experience a fresh kind of friendship. *My Queen* is a bizarre midsummer heartache of first love, told through the monologue of an adolescent boy with an intellectual disability.

Korean title: 나의 여왕

Korean author: 장바티스트 앙드레아

Korean publisher: 열린책들

ISBN-13: 9788932921112