Debré, Constance: Name

‘B rilliantly spiky ... As well as boasting compelling, sharp prose, Name forces readers to question what one‘s name means - and to who‘ AnOther Magazine, Best Books of 2025 ‘Unsettling and beautiful, admirably unabashed‘ Los Angeles Review of Books ‘Debré‘s voice is Camusian, comic, stark, relentless and totally hypnotic‘ Rachel Kushner ‘Written with edge and urgency in a voice that is both vulnerable and in full command‘ Colm Tóibín ‘Annie Ernaux, just edgier. Her prose is gorgeously spare and practical‘ Irish Independent Name is Debré‘s most intense novel yet, a fresh feat of sharp, spare, yet explosive prose. Set partly in the narrator‘s childhood, it explores ideas about origins and reshapes relationships to our various inheritances: name, family, class, habits. As the novel unravels, freedom is revealed as a redefining of these relationships on one‘s own terms. Brilliant and unflinching, Name affirms and extends Debré‘s radical project.