Biography

French language teacher and then manager of the language learning centre ??of the Cité internationale universitaire of Paris, Fanny Saintenoy now works in the office of the Mayor of Paris.

"This is a text that alternates gentle poetry and straightforward humor. Through the voice of a very old lady on her deathbed and that of her great-granddaughter, a young woman disrupted by modern life, five generations speak. Faced with the hardships of life, faced with death that sows discord, their stories convey an unwavering cheerfulness. A first novel, a short story that crosses the century, a rare success of vigor and simplicity. "(Presentation by the editor)

What could have been a disaster story becomes, thanks to the simplicity, the elegance and the humor of Fanny Saintenoy, tender and funny. We cross the twentieth century, its wars, its hopes, its tragedies, and we follow a family with its misfortunes related to History, its joys and intimate disasters. "(Josyane Savigneau, Le Monde des Livres, August 19th, 2011)

My old apple, in the hallway when I came to see you at the Madeleine, I always feared taking a blow, you have to inflate a bit your shoulders before entering a nursing home, make yourself a small shell protection. Just the smell, and then pushing the door of the service room, we entered another world, that of despair. I walked slowly, decay imposes silence. I glanced from right to left, every two doors. The old women in their armchairs, chair or bed, blank and confused stares infront of  the TV switched on just to make noise, pure dogged eyed sadness when they turned to see me pass. Dry arms hanging over shabby blankets, a range of acrid and fade smells. Another kind of death line. Like a movie in slow motion, I see your silhouette at the end, frail, leaning on the bar, your shoulder dragging a little along the wall. Your face changed slowly while you pleated your eyes several times to recognize us. I loved how you always forgot the dates of our visits, that way you looked surprised every time, it was my reward.