MARIE NDIAYE was born in Pithiviers, France. She is the author of Rosie Carpe, winner of the Prix Femina, and of Three Strong Women, winner of the Prix Goncourt. Her recent novel, Vengeance is Mine, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. She is also the recipient of the Gold Medal in the Arts from the Kennedy Center International Committee on the Arts. She lives in Paris.

Translated by Jordan Stump.

"The Witch is Marie NDiaye at her most dazzling. In this simple, startlingly powerful novel, NDiaye lays outher central themes: familial secrets, power, shame, andliberation. NDiaye is one of the greats--her novels are mesmerizing, wholly singular, completely unforgettable."
--Katie Kitamura, author of Audition

"An exacting portrait of domestic entrapment and psychological turmoil. . . . The Witch is classic NDiaye. Taut, spellbinding and strange, it unfolds with the disturbed logic of a fever dream. . . . NDiaye, a specialist in characters in extremis, chronicles Lucie's mounting panic with exacting precision, her sentences charting a welter of feeling."
--The New York Times

"This is NDiaye at her disquieting best."
--New York Magazine

"NDiaye's novels demand descriptions like disquieting, hypnotic, haunting. . . . Put simply, her novels are spellbinding. . . . The Witch is dreamlike, elliptical, unsettling and beautiful."
--The Financial Times

"A story of inheritance and liberation centered around a very NDiaye protagonist: someone holding it together in situations teetering on chaos."
--Lit Hub

"Short, sharp, and deceptively simple. . . . Unsettling and evocative, NDiaye's short novel distills dreams and truths alike."
--Kirkus Reviews

"NDiaye's novel will keep readers engrossed with its supernaturalism mixed with suburban bourgeois banalities. Anyone interested in late 20th-century French culture and literature will find this book entertaining but also bittersweet."
--Library Journal

"A 144-page grenade of walloping emotions. . . . Totally bizarre yet captivating. . . . A bad marriage is no new fodder for fiction, but NDiaye's extremely creative characters and absolutely outlandish twists take this well-traveled subject to a new level. Her dark humor is a constant, and she makes even the hardest moments of the story resonate with a deep understanding of human nature."
--BookPage (starred review)

Publisher: Vintage

Pub date: 2026-04-14

Length: 144 pages