The Ballad of Lila K
English sample translation available
Rights sold: Estonia (Eesti Ramat), Germany (Ullstein), Greece (Polis), Italy (Barbes), Poland (Sonia Draga), Vietnam (Van Hoc)
The Ballad of Lila K is primarily a voice: the voice of a sensitive yet caustic, fragile yet willful young woman telling her story from the day when a team of men dressed in black brutally snatched her from her mother, and took her to a Center (half boarding school, half prison) where she was held.
Gifted, asocial and traumatised, Lila has forgotten everything of her former life. She has just one obsession: finding her mother and recapturing her lost memories.
So begins her chaotic apprenticeship in a peculiarly off-kilter world where her safety now seems guaranteed but where books are no longer allowed.
During an enquiry that takes her beyond the bounds of what is legal, Lila gradually uncovers her past and finally learns what happened to her mother. Her trajectory brings her into contact with many characters, including an erudite and provocative schoolmaster, an educator who is as conventional as he is devoted, a depressive cellist longing for a child, a vicious concierge, a disfigured young man, a mysterious bibliophile, a multicoloured cat…
A rites of passage book in which suspense mingles with a disturbing love story, The Ballad of Lila K also explores the question of how our society is evolving and what may come of it.
Blandine Le Callet was born in 1969. She is a senior lecturer at the Paris-XII university and carries out research in ancient philosophy and Latin literature, on monsters in ancient Rome (her essay, Rome et ses monstres, was published in 2005 by Editions J. Millon). She lives near Paris.
Her first novel, Une pièce montée, enjoyed great critical and popular acclaim in 2006 and was awarded the Readers’ Prize for a paperback in 2007. It was adapted to the big screen in March 2010: “Pièce montée”.
La ballade de Lila K, c’est d’abord une voix : celle d’une jeune femme sensible et caustique, fragile et volontaire, qui raconte son histoire depuis le jour où des hommes en noir l’ont brutalement arrachée à sa mère, et conduite dans un Centre, mi-pensionnat mi-prison, où on l’a prise en charge.
Surdouée, asociale, polytraumatisée, Lila a tout oublié de sa vie antérieure. Elle n’a qu’une obsession : retrouver sa mère, et sa mémoire perdue.
Commence alors pour elle un chaotique apprentissage, au sein d’un univers étrangement décalé, où la sécurité semble désormais totalement assurée, mais où les livres n’ont plus droit de cité.
Au cours d’une enquête qui la mènera en marge de la légalité, Lila découvrira peu à peu son passé, et apprendra enfin ce qu’est devenue sa mère. Sa trajectoire croisera celle de nombreux personnages, parmi lesquels un maître érudit et provocateur, un éducateur aussi conventionnel que dévoué, une violoncelliste neurasthénique en mal d’enfant, une concierge vipérine, un jeune homme défiguré, un mystérieux bibliophile, un chat multicolore... Roman d’initiation où le suspense se mêle à une troublante histoire d’amour, La ballade de Lila K est aussi un livre qui s’interroge sur les évolutions et possibles dérives de notre société.
