In a family home in the north of France, a crime has been committed.

But a crime of what order? Who exactly is the victim and who, if anyone, is the criminal?

In Twenty Minutes of Silence, Hélène Bessette unleashes a polyphonic investigation, multiplying perspectives, contradictions, questions and doubts.

Everything in this high-octane drama is subject to change, including the lighting and the basic facts of the case.

Composed in her signature poetic prose style, Bessette’s novella builds a world punctured by startling disruptions and unexpected shifts, and in doing so destroys and remakes the crime novel, creating a form wholly new.

Devastating and exuberant, Twenty Minutes of Silence is a vital interrogation of the powerlessness of childhood, the compromises of adulthood, and the conventions of the novel itself.

Translated by Kate Briggs