Clearly Invisible in Paris

Set in the capital of all things chic, surrounded by inexplicably irritable inhabitants, this book is an ode to the friendships that have got so many through the darkest days of their lives.

In spite of living in the same apartment block in Paris, Neera, Rosel, Violet and Dasha have no idea about each other’s existence. In the grand duplex of Number Thirty-Six, the socialite Neera chain-smokes spliffs and lives a life of luxury with her director-producer husband. Many floors above, Rosel, a Filipina housekeeper-cum-nanny, dreams in her tiny attic room of becoming a French citizen and being reunited with her son. Seventeen-year-old Russian model, Dasha, shares her cramped apartment with other women, wanting to walk the ramp for the biggest fashion moguls but settling for whoever pays the bills. And on the ground floor, Violet, a Senegalese trans woman, is a burlesque dancer at night and plays savior to a handsome beggar by day.

When the whole world comes to a halt and turns itself upside down, the women of Number Thirty-Six are shocked out of their arduous lives. They become the unlikeliest of friends, relying on each other to belong to this city that is insistent on alienating them.

Irreverent, joyous, hilarious and passionate, with characters who seem to leap unapologetically off the page, Clearly Invisible in Paris is a celebration of the contradiction of being an outsider and belonging to the city.