Marie, a nurse on the island of Mayotte, adopts an abandoned baby and names him Moïse, raising him as a French boy. As he grows up, Moïse struggles with his status as an "outsider" and to understand why he was abandoned as a baby. When Marie dies, he is left alone, plunged into uncertainty and turmoil, ending up in the largest and most infamous slum on Mayotte, nicknamed "Gaza".

Narrated by five different characters, Tropic of Violence is an exploration of lost youth on the French island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Shining a powerful light on problems of violence, immigration, identity, deprivation and isolation on this island that became a French département in 2011, it is a remarkable, unsettling new novel that draws on the author's own observations from her time on Mayotte.

Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan

"A masterpiece" - La Grande Librairie

"This hard, harsh story will wring out your heart with its otherworldly poetry" - Elle

"In the magnificent Tropic of Violence, Nathacha Appanah gives us a terrifying portrait of Mayotte" - Lire

"A brief, beautiful, brutal portrait of this tiny island in the Indian Ocean" - Le Monde

"The strength and the elegance of this novel will take your breath away" - L'Express

"The hell of Mayotte finds its redemption in the novel's restrained, imaginative use of language" - Libération

"Brilliantly vivid" - Guardian

"Beautiful and brutal" - New Yorker

"Searing, lyrical, and ultimately devastating, Tropic of Violence might be Appanah's finest yet" - Kirkus Reviews