The Narrator of this novel remembers his late friend Fanny. She struggled with her mental health, and could often appear distant, holding herself still within her own body. But there was a lighter side to her, too. The Narrator recalls that Fanny once stole a leopard-skin hat, and wearing this made her act differently:

She also had in her, popping up from time to time, and always when you least expected it, the jovial young woman in the leopard-skin hat she would have been had certain hatches not got battened down one day, by accident, abruptly, as if by a gust of wind. Whenever this woman turned up in a word or a look, the Narrator was astounded. So Fanny wasn’t just this old friend battling against great odds? She was also this perfect stranger, this person no one had ever heard of whose lineaments had yet to be set down.
[Translated from French by Mark Hutchinson]

A Leopard-Skin Hat is an account of the Narrator’s friendship with Fanny, but all told at a distance like this. The Narrator can see his friend is struggling profoundly, but also knows that ultimately he can’t see the world through her eyes. There’s a push-and-pull to the writing, as we see the Narrator by turns get closer to and further away from his friend. 

There is a further distancing, in that even the character called “the Narrator” isn’t speaking to us directly. It’s especially poignant to learn that this book was written following the death of Anne Serre’s sister, and the distancing at work is Serre’s way of approaching that. If the leopard-skin hat in the novel can be seen as a symbol of those times when the Narrator can reach Fanny, then perhaps the novel itself is something similar for its author. 

Published by Lolli Editions.

Click here to read my other posts on the 2025 International Booker Prize.