Just released in France, Malva by Dutch writer Hagar Peeters has recently received positive reviews in two major publications:

Hagar Peeters renders the imaginary voice of the child by drawing on her poet’s language and her own complex relationships with her father. Ironic and lucid.
– Livres Hebdo

Malva is talkative [and] has a lot to say, especially that she is now “both a forgotten dead girl and an omniscient survivor”. […] Hydrocephalic, she lived only for eight years, “leech, gnome, monster” as she was called by her poet father. […] How can a poetic genius, who invents words for those who can not express themselves and gives them generously, be allowed to indulge in or even feed on the most frightening selfishness? […] The most beautiful pages are perhaps those in which Malva evokes her too short childhood, when she lived, despite her illness, entrusted to an affectionate foster family, regularly receiving visits by her mother who never gave up on her.
– Le Matricule des Anges