Clara Dupont-Monod – författare

It is with a soft voice, full of menace, that our mother commands us to overthrow our father . . . Richard Lionheart tells the story of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In 1173, she and three of her sons instigate a rebellion to overthrow the English king, her husband Henry Plantagenet. What prompts this revolt? How does a great queen persuade her children to rise up against their father? And how does a son cope with this crushing conflict of loyalties?Replete with poetry and cruelty, this story takes us to the heart of the relationship between a mother and her favourite son - two individuals sustained by literature, unspoken love, honour and terrible violence.

This is the story of a child with black eyes that float in and out of focus, a child soft and round, with translucent, blue-veined legs unable to hold his weight, an eternal baby. This is the story of his place in the Cévennes house where he was born, overlooked by swaying trees and craggy mountains. This is the story of his siblings: the eldest who spends his days cheek-to-cheek with his baby brother, attuned to the rushing, buzzing, whistling sounds that connect him to the outside world; the sister who rejects him and resents him for consuming the attention of her parents and brother, for turning her family upside down; and the youngest child, whose life unfolds in the shadow of what his brother''s might have been.This is the story of the ancient stones embedded in the courtyard walls, devoted witnesses to the children''s lives, who watch over them and tell their tale.A fable for our time, And the Stones Cry Out delicately paints the portrait of a family adapting to their circumstances, to each other, and to a world not built for difference.Translated from the French by Ben Faccini