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Fatou Diome. Inassouvies, nos vies. Paris. Flammarion. 2008. 271 pages. euro19. ISBN 978-2-0812-1353-1
The latest novel by the author of Le Ventre de l'Atlantique (2003; see WLT, September 2004, 83) and Kétala (2006) is set in Strasbourg, where Fatou Diome has been living since she left Senegal Ln 1994. The narrative is based on a plot device that has both literary and cinematic antecedents: the narrator, Betty, is fascinated by the lives she surreptitiously observes through the windows of the apartment building situated across the street from where she lives. In fact, this apparently solitary young woman refers to herself as "Betty la Loupe" (magnifying glass), describing in detail the results of her daily periods of scrutiny to her readers. A mixture of voyeurism and sociological observation,...