About Uncle
Rebecca Gisler
In a small seaside town on the French coast lives Uncle. He shares his house with his niece and nephew, who look after him when they could be doing something – anything – else. A disabled veteran with odd habits, Uncle is prone to drinking, hoarding and gorging, not to mention the occasional excursion down into the plumbing, where he might disappear for days at a time. As the world begins to shut down, Uncle and his niece are forced even closer still. She starts to watch his every move – every bathroom break he takes, every pill he swallows – and finds herself relying on this man, her only companion.
Translated from French by Jordan Stump.
'A cumulative portrait of a family is drawn with dark humor and inexhaustible affection…Through a series of digressions that seem to pull from Beckett, Kafka, and entomology, the narrator recounts the life of her mother’s brother, passing from a delightfully grotesque focus on his body (“I found that Uncle had indeed escaped through the hole in the toilet”) to an expansive and deeply empathetic vision of his past.' – Jasmine Vojdani, Vulture
‘A penetrating novel on disability, family relationships and modern times.’ – Florence Bouchy, Le Monde des livres
Rebecca Gisler was born in Zurich in 1991. She writes in German and French and translates her texts from one language into another. She has published poetry and prose in numerous magazines and anthologies. She is the co-organizer of the series Teppich in the House of Literature Zürich. In 2020 she won the 28th Open Mike literature competition. About Uncle is her first novel, and it was awarded the 2022 Swiss Prize for Literature.