LES MISERABLES gets a feminist reinterpretation from Welsh women’s press in FANNIE

Given that it is a feminist reimagining of the story of Fantine from Les Misérables, it’s no surprise that Fannie has been published by Honno, the excellent Welsh women’s press, who specialises in stories told from a female perspective. And given that Fannie has been written by Rebecca F. John, the talented author of Clown’s Shoes and The Haunting Of Henry Twist, it is also no surprise that the writing is uniformly brilliant – earthy, evocative, and lyrical.

For the uninitiated, Fantine is a tragic figure, a woman who has fallen upon hard times and whose story is drowned out by the bellowing of the mostly awful men around her. John does an excellent job of reclaiming this story, although it is a story in which Fannie is unable to lay claim to much at all; she is forced to give away parts of her body, as well as the body itself, to make the money she needs. Why does she need the money so desperately?

Her dilemma is that despite living in a world in which she has nothing, she has somebody in her life to whom she wants to give everything. John’s Fannie is a powerful, ultimately hopeful novella.