Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin

The building looks tired, the ivy-covered roof sagging above the brick-work, like a weary giant gasping for breath. There’s a car parked under the hazelnut tree. Bracken forces its way between the cracks in the front steps. Through the window, I can see a light inside.

In the wake of her father’s death, Agathe leaves New York and returns to her childhood home in the French countryside, after fifteen years away. Agathe and her sister Vera have not seen each other in all that time apart. Now, they must empty their home before it is knocked down. Vera stopped speaking when she was six, and as the pair clean and sift through a lifetime’s worth of belongings, old memories and resentments surface.

Tender, melancholic, and evocative, The Old Fire is Elisa Shua Dusapin’s most personal and moving novel yet. An exploration of time and memory, of family and belonging, of the unsaid and the unanswered, it is also a graceful and profound exploration of how loss and grief can live alongside life and abundance.

‘A touching, mysterious novel, imbued with the beauty and strangeness of a fairy tale.’
-Ayseg l Savas, author of The Anthropologists

‘A bewitching meditation on tenderness and violence, intimacy and estrangement, The Old Fire will transport you to an ancient and wild place … A breathtaking achievement from one of my favourite living writers.’
-Tess Gunty, author of The Rabbit Hutch

‘Dusapin observes her characters with anthropological curiosity and great sensitivity. Her wisdom will astound you.’
-Sanae Lemoine, author of The Margot Affair

About the Author: Elisa Shua Dusapin (Author)
Elisa Shua Dusapin was born in France in 1992 and raised in Paris, Seoul, and Switzerland. Her first novel, Winter in Sokcho, was published in 2016 to wide acclaim and was awarded the Prix Robert Walser, the Prix Regine Desforges, and, after its translation into English, the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Translator)
Aneesa Abbas Higgins has translated books by Elisa Shua Dusapin, Venus Khoury-Ghata, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Ali Zamir, and Nina Bouraoui. Seven Stones by Venus Khoury-Ghata was shortlisted for the Scott-Moncrieff Translation Prize, and both A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir and What Became of the White Savage by Fran ois Garde won PEN Translates awards.

31 Mar 2026
 

The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin ISBN 9781761381799