The lost and found, and other stories

the long version

This collection of stories is, as its title suggests, a sort of "lost and found," peopled with odd and vivid characters who are often alone and displaced, but whose world is one where the miraculous is ever lurking and possible. The stories are inhabited by immigrants from Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, and Chile as well as by lost souls in their own homeland. Many live in the city of Paris; however theirs is a dingy Paris largely unknown to most, where dilapidated sweatshops and immigrant hotels line narrow penurious streets. What all these characters share is an experience of exile, interior or real, but they live it out as a form of liberation. With the description of this liberation, Anne Marsella's writing frees itself from what we are familiar with and takes on an almost mystical character