After a remarkable entry into the world of literature with « la commode aux tiroirs de couleurs« , Olivia Ruiz returns with a second equally successful novel.

Sold in more than 300,000 copies

Known for her music with pop and folk tones, Olivia Ruiz, the interpreter of « Elle panique » or « J’traine des pieds » made a remarkable entry into literature in June 2020 with « La commode aux tiroirs de couleurs« . Sold in more than 300,000 copies, the book is a fiction inspired by his personal story. Born Olivia Blanc ( Ruiz is the surname of one of her grandmothers ) she grew up in Marseillette (Aude) in a family of Spanish origin. Three of his grandparents fled Spain during the civil war. But of this story, she knows nothing. So, to « fill in the holes », she imagined the story of Rita, an exile, who bequeaths a chest of drawers to her granddaughter when she dies. Inside, the secrets of a painful story linked to exile are revealed.

The darkest of Franco’s Spain

In « Ecoute la pluie tomber« , Olivia Ruiz’s new novel, we find the verve and energy of female characters plagued by the torments of history, in particular Carmen, Rita’s sister at the heart of her first novel. Back in the small town of Marseillette in 1977 – where the exiled family of Olivia Ruiz had settled when they arrived in France – Carmen remembers the figures who marked her life, those who tipped her existence to the darkest of Franco’s Spain, those who put it back on the right track, knew how to pierce its flaws and listen to its desires. With her lively and luminous writing, Olivia Ruiz depicts village life. There are the three Ruiz-Monpean sisters, exiled Republicans from the Spanish Franco dictatorship, who have run the village café, La Terrasse, with an iron fist since their arrival in France. The author accurately recounts what makes, what keeps a community together: blood ties, of course, but also the chosen family, those who are collected, who are welcomed into their own little world. .