“Each year, when I return to Namibia, I visit Mathilda Schloss’ grave. I help the Namibian trail openers with me to weed and clean up the bougainvilleas that surround out. I wait for them to move on and I lay the awkward bouquet of flowers I put together down on her. I hope that an new hand will come to take care of her when I can no longer do it, before time erases Mathilda Schloss’ memory.”
Namibia 1946. Amidst a stunning African backdrop, a young woman must choose her own destiny. Mathilda was raised with the strict values of her German family. When her husband leaves to fight in the war, she is faced with situations she could never have anticipated.
Mathilda is the portrait of a young woman trapped by the sense of duty and the need to conform to society’s demands. She fights a hard fight.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was born in 1926 in Coblence. The youngest President of the French Republic from1974 to 1981, he was elected member of the Académie Française in 2003 and since 2001, has been the President of the European Convention. A seasoned author, he has published 9 works of non-fiction, including the renowned Démocratie Française. This is his second novel after The Princess and the President in 2009, which sold over 50,000 copies in France.
