The forty-year-old Solène, an extremely successful lawyer, tries to overcome her depression after a tragic incident by volunteering her services at a shelter in Paris that hosts women in need of help. There, she takes on the role of public scribe, assisting those who are unable to write a letter on their own.
Homeless, migrants, abused, substance-dependent, coming from low social backgrounds and having lived on the margins of society, these women approach Solène with distrust. She will need to fight to find a place among them, simultaneously engaging with worlds she only knew theoretically until then.
About a century earlier, Blanche Perron, the then head of the Salvation Army, fought her own battle to ensure that this shelter, the Women's Palace, could exist and operate, providing an enormous humanitarian service.
Narrating both of these stories, with Blanche Perron's being true, Letizia Colombani sensitively approaches the harsh lives of the marginalized women in the shelter, who struggle against adversity in an attempt to overcome difficulties and emerge victorious from this difficult and uneven fight. Some will succeed, while others will not, but the most important thing is the struggle itself, the fight for life.
"Something more than a novel: a document, a defense of the struggle for social rights and diversity." Paris Match
"A hymn to sisterhood." Le Parisien
"Wonderful portraits of women." Le Figaro
