UNICA

The story takes place in Vancouver, in the near future. Herb Charity is a cyber policeman, part of a specialised branch of the police force that hunts down pedophiles on the Net. During one of their inquests, he arrests a young woman and falls in love with her. Yet Unica Bathory is a disconcerting character: a women who appears to have stopped growing up - a fake child with white hair. She is also the leader of a gang of nanoterrorists that punishes voyeurs as well as the clients of pedophilic networks by injecting their cortex with a computer chip to make them feel the pain of the children they abuse - an unbearable suffering that can provoke blindness.
At the frontier between reality and the virtual, truth and deceit, a strange love story develops between Herb, a young man not yet fully adult, and Unica, a grown up woman locked in the body of a young girl. Unica is a cruel and playful tale that takes place in a very near future and offers a highly topical reflection on the era of virtuality (love through machines, virtual crimes...).
Élise Fontenaille is a formidable story teller. Hers are wonder worlds populated with the strangest of characters. With Unica, she constructs a story in the tradition of Philip-K. Dick and Tim Burton's fiction.

Born in Nancy in 1960, Élise Fontenaille began her career as a journalist. She has written five novels, published by Grasset: La Gommeuse (1997), Le Palais de la Femme (1999), Demain les Filles on va tuer papa (2001), L'Enfant Rouge (2002) et Brûlements (2006).

Née à Nancy, en 1960, Elise Fontenaille a été journaliste pendant quelques années. Elle est l'auteur de cinq romans parus chez Grasset : La Gommeuse (1997), Le Palais de la Femme (1999), Demain les filles on va tuer papa (2001), L'Enfant Rouge (2002) et Brûlements (2006).
C'est de Vancouver qu'est née la bizarre histoire d'amour d'Unica et de Herb Charity. C'est à Vancouver que Philip K. Dick est devenu fou... Elise Fontenaille y a vécu deux ans, elle y retourne aussi souvent qu'elle peut.