The brutal death of two women, murdered by their husbands, triggered a mechanism in the mind of journalist and writer Nathacha Appanah (Mahébourg, Mauritius, 1973). She decided to silence the murderers, stand by the victims, and tell her own story as well. In The Night at the Heart (Angle/ADN), translated from French into Catalan by Andreu Gomila, the writer weaves together the three stories to confront the ghosts, to not let anyone erase who these women were, and to reflect on a society where femicides are all too frequent.

It is possible that some readers, upon reading the back cover text of this novel, might think: another book about femicides? And what is more: another narrator witness reflecting on the moral right to write about the subject? But it is enough to follow four news items to come across the evidence that the murders of women –and, specifically, those committed by the victims' husbands or romantic partners– never end. As if it were impossible to reprogram certain brains and extirpate the conviction that the woman they claim to love with madness is their property and cannot do anything they do not consider appropriate: wear certain clothes, talk to other men, go out to work every day... They seem like things from another world, or another era, but the arguments of past times or cultural otherness do not even need to be taken out of the closet. It does not matter the sociocultural level, the color of the skin, or the language of the assassins: the scourge is everywhere. And it must also be addressed from writing, which is capable of recounting great violence and enormous ambiguities.