DANS LES MURS

A SENSUAL AND MYSTICAL QUEST

Laure has abruptly left her husband and son in Montreal to travel to Trieste, in search of original manuscripts or unpublished works for her thesis. There, she soon has a sensual entanglement with a man that tempts her to use her real name again, one she had wanted to bury along with the grief of war and exile. Embracing her sensual awakening leads Laure, or Lejla, on a spiritual quest that then takes her to Istanbul, then to Beirut, and finally, to Sarajevo, here native, scarred city. Woven through the novel are themes Maya Ombasic holds dear: the allure of ancient cities, the search for family memory, and questions on the idea of nation, the branch from
which fatal violence spawns and nostalgia blossoms.

A novelist and poet, Maya Ombasic's works include Les Chroniques du lézard, Rhadamanthe (Marchand
de feuilles, 2007 and 2010) and Mostarghia (VLB, 2015; Flammarion, 2017; English translation published by
Biblioasis in 2019).