Wunderland

A love letter to human nature and all its contradictions, Wunderland pays homage to the women who embraced the unknown and overcame hostility in their search for a new life. Pauline Clavière’s third novel is deft, perceptive, and defiant.

When two beautiful and vivacious young women show up at a village dance on Bastille Day in 1977, everything turns upside down. The village, where life is perfectly routine and inconsequential, is soon threatened by mystery–and danger. The arrival of these two German women, Brunhilde and Mariella, sparks both fascination and suspicion among the villagers.

Why have these strangers, these foreigners, come to such a remote place? Are they spies? Criminals? Witches? Usually, the village’s rhythms revolve around the animals and fields, and country life in these postwar years operates miles away from the tidal wave of modernity. However, their arrival provokes long-forgotten memories of the past and ignites anxieties of the present.

Wunderland is the true story of a village in the depths of Cantal, the childhood home of Pauline Clavière’s family. This novel was born from her investigation into why her mother left it and why others remained. Clavière captures the beauty and atmosphere of a quintessentially French region and the moment that defined the course of her family’s life.