Mon Petit is a powerful and emotional debut novel that takes us through the streets of Belleville in the 1990s, following the frenzied footsteps of a young girl who is forced to grow up more quickly than others.

Naëlle grows up in two homes because her mother is a nurse and can’t raise her four children on her own. So she and her siblings live part of the time with their grandmother in her social housing on Rue Piat and the other part of the time with their mother at the Porte de Montreuil. It’s her grandmother that really raises her and so Naëlle is devastated when she leaves Paris for the quieter countryside.

Left to her own devices Naëlle falls in love with Gustave with his green eyes and new Nikes, and becomes a mother at 19. But hers is not the fairytale ending; there is drama hovering nearby that will change everything.

Mon Petit is a novel about women who don’t dare to speak out and defend themselves. It’s about how one decision can change the rest of your life. How you can be trapped in the socio-conomical setting you were born into and manage to survive that. In short, Mon Petit is a literary force that packs an emotional punch.

Nadège Erika is an educator who specializes in the medico-social. She uses writing as a shield against pain and injustice, and as a way to refuse the status quo.