A son recounts the epic story of his late mother’s life in this mythic novel of love, family, hatred, and revenge. When Salina dies, it falls to her youngest son to tell her story, a story of violence and suffering, vengeance and passion. Exiled three times, the first time as a newborn abandoned outside a village by a mysterious horseman, Salina was taken in and raised by a clan that only ever saw her as a stranger and an enemy to be defeated. Three times a mother, her children born from strife, Salina never knew love, and revenge became her reason to live. To gain admittance to the cemetery, to a place of peace at last, Salina’s son must face up and tell the tale of Salina’s ordeals—her rape the most harrowing—in minute detail. He has no choice but to give voice to all that for years fed into Salina’s rage. With this short novel set in an ancestral world, Laurent Gaudé explores a narrative space where time flows to rhythmic rituals, where fate blurs to legend, and secrets become myth. Praise for Salina: The Three Exiles “It’s a simply superb text, a perfect accomplishment uniting two of Laurent Gaudé’s talents, playwriting and novel writing.” —Livres Hebdo “With this sun scorched ode of a novel, [Laurent Gaudé] confirms that he is one of our greatest storytellers.” —Philippe Chevilley, Les Echos “A brief and powerful tale. A striking reflection on exile and vengeance.” —François Busnel, France5 “Tenaciously beautiful, this brief epic has the astonishing power of a myth.” —Claire Julliard, L’Obs “Beautiful, powerful, and moving. Between African tale and ancient tragedy, tinged with universal and very modern accents, Laurent Gaudé has written a brief novel that is insanely powerful.” —Bernard Lehut, RTL

Who will tell the tale of Salina, the mother of three sons, the woman with three exiles, the abandoned child with salty tears? She was taken in by Mamambala and raised as her daughter in a clan that only ever saw her as a stranger and which wanted to defeat her. At the twilight of her life, it is her last son who will recount what she has been, while death offers her the rest that life kept from her, so that her tale can become a legend. In a mythical and timeless style, Laurent Gaudé writes the painful geste of a luminous, powerful, and wild heroine, who mistook love for dues and revenge for a reason to live.

There is a hurting beauty in these urban portraits of pain, dislocation, decay, and renewal. These intricate scenes and intimate voices are captivating, unsettling, and often exultant. – Sandra Jackson-Opoku, author of The River Where Blood is Born and Hot Johnny and the Women Who Loved Him.

It is the second Age of Man, the age before the world turned. The Empire of the Dragon-Blooded -- an invincible colossus -- stands astride the ruins of the First Age. For millennia, the scarlet Empress held the world in her steel grip. But the empress is no more, and the Realm spirals toward chaos and civil war. Its enemies descend -- demon princes, deathlords, skin-changing barbarians and the twisted and inscrutable Fair Folk hammer at the gates. In this time of darkness are reborn the solar Exalted, heroes of legend once slain by the Dragon-Blooded. Will these living legends herald the return of the Golden Age... or the end of creation? The source on magic for Exalted players and Storytellers.