Dabos, Christelle
Entry updated 7 April 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1980- ) French author best-known for The Mirror Visitor sequence of Young Adult tales beginning with Les fiancés d'hiver (2013; trans Hildegarde Serle as A Winter's Promise 2018), initially readable as relatively straightforward fantasy featuring a young protagonist with Psi Powers – the ability to divine the meaning of past objects and to pass physically through mirrors – typical of the genre and her age. But the world she inhabits is Equipoisally also a kind of Space Habitat or "ark", one of a large number of fragments of the explosive End of the World, a world that is clearly Earth. As the sequence progresses, it becomes clear that this complex venue is the site of a Godgame, which seems to be controlled by the mysterious Deviations Institute. In the end, to understand the game is to survive it.
The protagonists of Ici et seulement Ici (Paris: Gallimard Jeunesse, 2023; trans Hildegarde Serle as Here, and Only Here 2023), a singleton, discover that the School of Here which they attending is a Zone, and that they may be unknowing players in some all too literal game of life (see Games and Sports). In the end, what may be understand as a game board foliates into something like a tree of life. This is good news. [JC]
Christelle Dabos
born Côte d'Azur, Riviera, France: 1980
works
series
The Mirror Visitor
- Les fiancés d'hiver (Paris: Gallimard Jeunesse, 2013) [La passe-miroir: pb/Laurent Gapaillard]
- A Winter's Promise (London: Europa Editions, 2018) [trans by Hildegarde Serle of the above: The Mirror Visitor: hb/Laurent Gapaillard]
- Les disparus du Clairdelune (Paris: Gallimard Jeunesse, 2015) [La passe-miroir: pb/Laurent Gapaillard]
- The Missing of Clairdelune (London: Europa Editions, 2019) [trans by Hildegarde Serle of the above: The Mirror Visitor: hb/Laurent Gapaillard]
- La Mémoire de Babel (Paris: Gallimard Jeunesse, 2017) [La passe-miroir: pb/Laurent Gapaillard]
- The Memory of Babel (London: Europa Editions, 2020) [trans by Hildegarde Serle of the above: The Mirror Visitor: hb/Laurent Gapaillard]
- La tempete des échos (Paris: Gallimard Jeunesse, 2019) [La passe-miroir: pb/Laurent Gapaillard]
- The Storm of Echoes (London: Europa Editions, 2021) [trans by Hildegarde Serle of the above: The Mirror Visitor: hb/Laurent Gapaillard]
individual titles
- Ici et seulement Ici (Paris: Gallimard Jeunesse, 2023) [pb/Laurent Gapaillard]
- Here, and Only Here (London: Europa Editions, 2023) [trans by Hildegarde Serle of the above: hb/Ginevra Rapisardi]
links
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