While the Gods Were Sleeping

Best Translated Fiction of the Year, The Independent

This stunning historical fiction novel about the magnitude and impact of World War I—told through the written memories of an elderly Belgian woman—has “the footprint of Proust . . . on every page” (Financial Times)

As a girl, Helena is sent to her uncle’s country house just before the Great War, and from here she witnesses scenes of indescribable horror. But it is also where she meets Matthew again—a British Army photographer who she go...