There are Three Ways to Die

What is home for each of us? Is it a physical place or a web of people? Natacha Appanah's own life has been shaped by displacement, beginning in India, passing through Mauritius, and settling in France.

"My home has always been tied to the people I love," she says. "The places I inhabit are really my attachments, because I was raised from childhood with the idea that we would travel constantly." Fittingly, "home" in her book was translated into French as foyer, a word which means both house and hearth.

Night at Heart (2026) weaves together the stories of three women, two femicides and one attempted femicide. Chahinez Daoud was killed in 2021 by her ex-husband in Mérignac, France, after months of stalking. She was shot in the legs, then burned alive in the street. Emma was murdered by her husband in Mauritius in 2000. She was run over and thrown into a ditch. And there is Appanah's own story: at twenty-five, she escaped a violent partner she feared would kill her.

“How does one live with the obsession to tell such stories and find the right distance from them?” asks Espérance Hakuzwimana, writer and activist. For Appanah, it began with Chahinez, whose story haunted her, surfacing wherever she looked. But her intolerance of injustice dates back further, to a childhood belief that adults would fix such things and male violence would no longer exist by the time she grew up. "Now I am the adult, and the violence still exists. It's up to me to solve it. With my voice."

This voice conflicts with how the media reports these deaths. Murdered women are often belittled. With Chahinez, the news foregrounded her Muslim faith, casting her as a vulnerable woman who spoke limited French. These details take all the space, leaving little left to acknowledge women's agency and strength.

Language, too, is a matter of identity. Hakuzwimana, adopted from Rwanda as an infant by parents in Brescia, describes the grief of returning after thirty years and finding herself surrounded by her own people without sharing their language. Telling these stories takes many languages, speaking out and staying in silence, as with Emma, who remained anonymous for two decades before her family felt ready to name her.

Appanah closes: "There are three ways to die: when the heart stops, when memory fades, and, most irreversibly, when your name is no longer spoken."

Night at Heart (2026) weaves together the stories of three women, two femicides and one attempted femicide. Chahinez Daoud was killed in 2021 by her ex-husband in Mérignac, France, after months of stalking. She was shot in the legs, then burned alive in the street. Emma was murdered by her husband in Mauritius in 2000. She was run over and thrown into a ditch. And there is Appanah's own story: at twenty-five, she escaped a violent partner she feared would kill her.

“How does one live with the obsession to tell such stories and find the right distance from them?” asks Espérance Hakuzwimana, writer and activist. For Appanah, it began with Chahinez, whose story haunted her, surfacing wherever she looked. But her intolerance of injustice dates back further, to a childhood belief that adults would fix such things and male violence would no longer exist by the time she grew up. "Now I am the adult, and the violence still exists. It's up to me to solve it. With my voice."

This voice conflicts with how the media reports these deaths. Murdered women are often belittled. With Chahinez, the news foregrounded her Muslim faith, casting her as a vulnerable woman who spoke limited French. These details take all the space, leaving little left to acknowledge women's agency and strength.

Language, too, is a matter of identity. Hakuzwimana, adopted from Rwanda as an infant by parents in Brescia, describes the grief of returning after thirty years and finding herself surrounded by her own people without sharing their language. Telling these stories takes many languages, speaking out and staying in silence, as with Emma, who remained anonymous for two decades before her family felt ready to name her.

Appanah closes: "There are three ways to die: when the heart stops, when memory fades, and, most irreversibly, when your name is no longer spoken."