In upstate New York in 2001, nine-year-old twins Sabina and Camilla spend the summer weathering the moods of their erratic mother while finding themselves pulled toward diverging interests: Sabina into the mystery of their absent French father and Camilla into burgeoning popularity. But their lives are shaken up by the arrival of an Arab French family across the street. Thrilled by what she sees as a link to the country of her origins, Sabina attempts to befriend the family’s son, Khalil, and is rebuffed for reasons she doesn’t understand.
Yet as the twins and Khalil come of age, they are drawn into a tense and ever-shifting triangular dynamic. As Sabina strives to find her father and make sense of her mother, as Camilla confronts whether the power she held in youth translates to adulthood, and as Khalil reckons with the psychological fallout of a family tragedy, their paths converge in ways both surprising and inevitable. Bookended by events with global resonance, Mistranslation is a continent-spanning chronicle of family, inheritance, and the reverberations of the choices we do—or don’t—make.
“A complex quadrille in which characters dance imperfectly through their lives, with much to say about what it takes to be a parent, a sibling, a friend.”—Geraldine Brooks, author, Memorial Days
“Brimming with compassion and wit, rich with everything I want in a novel: sinuous prose, elegant storytelling, and arresting characters.”—Emily Fridlund, author, History of Wolves
“Sexy, tender, and surprising, this deft debut remains exquisitely intimate even as it soars across cities and decades. Mistranslation will capture your attention, break your heart at least once, and stay with you for a long time.”—Eleanor Henderson, author, Everything I Have Is Yours
“A shimmering web that reckons as elegantly with family tragedy and the pains of growing up as with French literature, geopolitics, the matter of dreams, and the complexities of language—a thunderously beautiful and brilliant novel that will engage readers for years to come.”—Monica Datta, author, Nebraska
“A gorgeously twined story of long-simmering desire, sublimated conflict, and tantalizing ambiguity with a precision and magnetism rivaling the most memorable stories of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Elena Ferrante. I was spellbound.”—Naomi Xu Elegant, author, Gingko Season
“Sweeping and intimate, Mistranslation is crafted with the boldness of a writer unafraid to sit with complexity. Ambitious, meditative, and wholly original, this stayed with me long after I finished the last page.”—Caroline Wolff, author, The Wayside
“Told in sharp prose, this is a story about tense relationship triangles, the complexities of immigration, blinding obsession, and fraught sisterhood.”—Reena Shah, author, Every Happiness
