The author of “The Song of Ekhirit” presents his new novel, “Excision,” where religious fanaticism and tolerance clash in Geneva in the year 2025. Female cop Aayan, a victim of absolute evil, leads a breathless investigation. Suspense and the fight against extremism and prejudices are at the heart of this dystopian novel.
“Excision” first comes to life through the pen of Zariel, the illustrator known as Cracheur d’encre, and shows a divided female silhouette with blood-red fairy wings… The theme is set. The title is as clear as can be. And yet, this novel by Olivier May goes much further than its beautiful cover might suggest.
Aayan, a policewoman who underwent FGM during her Somalian childhood and author of the “Dictionary of Oppression,” is investigating an unusual case: bank heists in Swiss institutions carried out by two masked men dressed in ski suits. At first glance, nothing surprising, but the takings are slim, deaths occur, and the witnesses are two Muslim women heavily involved in the struggle “against fundamentalism, archaic practices, and for the dignity of Muslim women and their integration into modernity.”
Why are they spared? What are the reasons behind these bloody heists?
The novel opens with an interchapter in italics, scientific, mysterious, describing strange endoscopies to the reader. Throughout the reading, one wonders where Olivier May is leading… The proof is that his mechanism works because the pages fly by, and you are eager to understand the reason for these attacks as much as to follow the thoughts and life—both personal and professional—of the heroine. Aayan is indeed a very endearing main character, complex, scarred by FGM. The couple she forms with David, a Jewish journalist, is touching and superbly modern. She harbors no prejudice, she is sincere and natural. Their meeting, obviously, has an unusual resonance after the Toulouse attacks earlier in the year…
In “Excision,” you find the futuristic atmosphere of “The Song of Ekhirit,” the precision in using new technologies, the evolution of mindsets, all new elements are sprinkled throughout the novel without ever drowning the reader in tedious explanations.
Despite its 116 pages, “Excision” is dense, rich in characters, anecdotes, and events. Olivier May’s refined writing builds a narrative full of modesty, without pretense; the FGM experienced by Aayan is chilling, terrifying, and unfortunately for some women, still a reality today, it’s not fiction. Sometimes, a few overly long sentences weigh down the narrative.
The brutality of FGM, the resulting suffering, and an unrelenting investigation make “Excision” a sometimes painful but necessary read.
The story alternates between passages of the investigation and the endoscopies, whose threads are finely woven to reach a terrible climax; in the background, the slow and long physical and psychological reconstruction of the heroine. Very committed, the author makes “Excision” an intelligently crafted text against religious extremism in all its forms.
