Changes

|title=Ignorance

|author=Michele Roberts

|publisher=Bloomsbury

|date=March 2013

|website=http://www.micheleroberts.co.uk/

|video=

|summary=A powerful and moving story of the lives of two young women in a French village during the German occupation. Beautifully written.

}}

Michèle Roberts's ''Ignorance'' is a beautifully written, lyrical story about life in wartime France. Narrated mainly by two characters, Jeanne and Marie-Angèle, it jumps back and forward in time and is an enthralling mixture of guilt, faith, and survival. The two girls could not be more different. Marie-Angèle is the grocer's daughter while Jeanne is the daughter of a Jewish mother who washes clothes for a living. The two girls together go to the village convent for their education but come from different ends of the social spectrum. When the German occupation arrives, the two girls' experiences are very different but both are 'ignorant' of each others plight and their judgements are repeatedly shown to be wide of the mark. In fact the book could just as well have been titled 'Judgement'. Just when you think you know one through the eyes of the other, you get the opposite view of things.

Amongst other books optimistic enough to challenge for the Women's Prize for Fiction in a year when [[Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel]] is featured include [[NW by Zadie Smith]] and [[A Trick I Learned from Dead Men by Kitty Aldridge]]. Other prizes may be more consistent in their names, but few match the consistency of quality of this annual award.

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