Born to a single mother in a family where violence established by the grandfather, with whom they live, reigns, a mute child lives on the margins of society. Never schooled, non-existent in the eyes of the world, they survive only thanks to the books they read borrowed from the library where their mother works. Until one day when the grandfather’s humiliations and aggressions repeat for the umpteenth time and the mother decides to put a definitive end to it. Taking flight, she leaves her child who manages for a while before being hospitalized. When Casque de cuivre (“Copper Helmet”) appears, a woman who crossed paths with them at the library and decides to take them under her wing, it’s the beginning of a healing road trip that will guide them on the path to liberation and (re)construction while they search for their place in a world that, through its categorizations, norms, and violence, has never ceased to reject them. In the form of a hymn to sisterhood, also inviting new alliances with minerals, animals, and plants, this powerful and delicate text celebrates the power of imagination and words, as an attempt to answer the question posed by André Breton: “Doesn’t the poverty of our world depend on our power of enunciation?”
