Madelaine Before the Dawn

WINNER

Prix Goncourt des Lycéens

American Choix Goncourt

A Masterful New Novel by Sandrine Collette, One of France’s Most Daring and Acclaimed Writers.

In a time outside time, in a world hemmed in by dark woods and silence, the villagers of Les Montées endure a life of hardship and submission. The land is stingy, the lords are merciless, and resistance is a dream dreamt by the village women.

Twin sisters Aelis and Ambre are born with an otherworldly beauty that turns heads and decides destinies. Ambre, childless and quietly suffering in a loveless marriage, adopts a wild, starving foundling who appears one day at the edge of the forest. Madeleine’s arrival unsettles the fragile order of Les Montées. She is fierce, brave, mysterious, magnetic, brilliant, and shockingly adept with an axe. One day, she slaughters a stag in defiance of the lord’s decrees. The land, the laws, and the lives of those around her tremble in response, and a new destiny begins to take root, one lit by rebellion and fed by ancient wounds.

Narrated by Bran, a boy Madeleine’s age who watches her with a mix of awe and dread, Madelaine Before the Dawn is a wild, lyrical novel about the inheritance of silence, the fire of female defiance, and the long-suppressed urge to upend the rules of a world written by men.

Collette’s storytelling evokes the brutal beauty of Zola’s Germinal and possesses the sweep of the novels of García Márquez. Hers is an elemental, undeniable voice, and with Madelaine Before the Dawn, she delivers the most ambitious novel of her career—an electrifying vision of revolt and resilience at the edge of civilization.

Author Biography

Sandrine Collette lives in the Morvan area of Burgundy. Among her many novels, Europa Editions has published Nothing but Dust (2018), Just After the Wave (2020), and The Forests (2022), winner of the 2020 Prix du Livre France Bleu PAGE, the Grand Prix RTL Lire, and the Prix de La Closerie des Lilas. With Madelaine Before Dawn, Collette won the 2024 Prix Goncourt des Lycéens and the 2025 American Choix Goncourt prize.