Set in late 1950s Paris, a city still somewhat traumatised by its WWII experiences, this is the story of Saffie, a somewhat inscrutable young Swiss woman who applies to me the maid of a successful flautist Raphael. Bewitched by her strange remoteness, he marries her, and they have a child together, despite their distant, cool relationship. And then she meets Andras, who enters the story to repair Raphael's flute. This is their story, and the story of the bloody Algerian conflict tearing Paris apart at the time. It's the story of Jews in France, and it's a dramatic and tragic story: one illustrating how much our lives, however we might wish it otherwise, are shaped by external events. I liked Huston's arch, yet confiding and conversational tone, and was engaged by it to the very end. ( )

Comme une histoire en poupées russes, l’empreinte de l’ange apporte de nombreuses couches de lectures. Une histoire de l’après-guerre avec l’impossible héritage des crimes des parents, l’abandon de soi et de la vie, le (les) coup de foudre amoureux et la passion, la maternité non désirée, la xénophobie et l’antisémitisme, l’adultère, la quatrième république, la guerre d’Algérie vécue à Paris, le FLN et l’OAS, le massacre du 17 octobre 1961 et les corps des algériens dans la Seine.

Beaucoup de facettes pour un livre et pourtant, tout s’y lie avec fluidité, la grande histoire rejoint la vie, tout se croise dans un tourbillon absolument maîtrisé.

Un livre d’une grande douceur et d’une dureté glaciale qui emporte et coupe le souffle ( )

An extraordinary book about innocence. A young German woman, Saffie, takes on the job of housekeeper for a Parisian Flautist twelve years after the end of WWII. Her reserve combines with a submissiveness that shocks, yet appeals to, Raphael. In short order he marries her, looking for the ideal married life. His blindness to reality keeps him in the dark while she finds a lover, Andras, a Hungarian Jew, and lives a double life.

Saffie is intent on making a normal life for herself after suffering the loss of her family in the war, and only after much time is she able to talk at all about what she remembers. Andras is caught up in the Algerian war for independence from France, which is brought home to Algerians living in Paris in a horrifying way. He joins a resistance movement and can't comprehend Saffie's lack of sight. Raphael is not exactly oblivious to the atrocities committed by his own countrymen while he plays his flute sublimely, but he justifies his lack of a response by pointing to the music he makes.

In the end, who is innocent? Now or then? Beautifully written, often sad but with wit that made me smile, this novel brings the Algerian-French war to the forefront without forcing us to choke on it - although perhaps we should. ( )

> Nancy Huston aime ses personnages. C'est pour cela sans doute que dès les premières lignes, on s'y attache avec une telle force. Comme dans Trois fois septembre (1989) ou La Virevolte (1994), elle rend admirablement dans L'Empreinte de l'ange (Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle en 1998), et sans jamais juger, les passions, parfois dévastatrices, des êtres authentiques.

Como todas las que leí de esta fabulosa autora es una historia contada con poco habitual profundidad en los sentimientos de los protagonistas, puestos a prueba ante la vida y el tiempo que les tocó vivir. Acercamiento al momento histórico de la guerra de Argelia en el París de finales de los 50 y principios de los 60. Desarrollo de la trama con maestría. ( )