We, the liberated women of '68, what responsibility did we have in the Metoo?

In the autumn of 1977, in Lausanne, 13-year-old Clémence is bewitched by her uncle, a renowned tombeur des femmes, whose presence seems to electrify the whole family. At 18, she becomes his occasional lover. Once discovered, the affair upsets the family, and it is Clémence who is accused. This is how The Indulgences (Nutrimenti), the thirteenth novel by the award-winning Genevan writer Pascale Kramer (you can hear her at Festivaletteratura on Sunday 7 September, at 4.30 pm at the Bishop's Seminary), begins, which follows up to the present day the effect that this forbidden relationship has on three generations of women.

What made you choose this subject?

I was very marked by the metoo movement. When it started in the world, I said to myself: I'm of the same generation as the men who fell because of the metoo, we did our sentimental education together. Then I asked myself what was our responsibility as women, what did we accept that we should not accept. We talked a lot about the responsibility of men, but I was also interested in understanding what the responsibility of women was. The book is set in five different moments: it starts in 1977 and ends in 2023 and the aim is to investigate how women's love sensitivity has evolved over time. Clémence's story with her uncle is the thread running through the generations. This story is told through the eyes of relatives, friends and teachers. Through the stories of different women and how they react to the relationship, I have woven this investigation into the evolution of the male-female relationship.

Clémence is 18 years old when she becomes her uncle's mistress, she is very young but of age, one cannot speak of paedophilia. Nor is it classical incest, because she has the affair with her uncle, not with her father. It seems that the story was designed to be on the borderline, on the edge of what is considered morally acceptable. Was this done on purpose?

Yes, I didn't want to choose a clearly reprehensible situation, a borderline situation. She is in love with her uncle because he is brilliant, he represents a different way than she is, she is in love as a child can be, but still at 17 she goes looking for him. He does not seek her out, he does not seduce her. He finds her pretty, she falls right into his arms, and he seizes the opportunity. 'Forbidden to forbid', was the slogan of that era there. As in my other books, I stay on the crest, I am not interested in judging, but in putting myself in a given situation, and putting the reader in it, seeing from the inside when it is unacceptable. Many women find that the one described is already completely unacceptable and I have seen that it depends on the generations. In my books I never judge, because I tell from the point of view of the characters what is happening. Of course I focus the camera on certain gestures, on certain things said, but there is no commentary. And that is the idea, to invite reflection.