No Touching

Josephine teaches at a college in a Paris suburb. Her life is a despondent routine of Xanax tablets and Tupperware lunches in the staff room. A tedious existence punctuated by the incessant, onerous, sometimes surreal, directives from the department of education.

Except that, every night Josephine undergoes a radical transformation and becomes Rose Lee, a stripper in a night club on the Champs-Elysees. There, under the spotlights, she reclaims her life, reconciles herself to her own body, and falls head over heels in love with the desire she inspires in men, the power she draws from it.

Josephine's life is a mixture of glamour and greyness, a heady, dangerous seesaw between the omnipotence she feels when she's desired, and the boredom of her day job. But if she carries on playing with fire, Rose Lee may end up burning her wings.

A story of liberation, a heartrending reflection on a woman's image of herself, and the way others see her, Ketty Rouf's extraordinary debut gets right down to shattering tired prejudices about sex and society.

No Touching explores these themes with nuance and bravado, making it a compelling read.