Charlotte, young and fiercely independent, leaves the constraints of her Parisian childhood for Wales, running away from a traumatic event. Hoping to find peace and somewhere to rebuild her life, she is confronted with a growing sense of fragmentation and soon unravels.

Her mother, Marianne, well-travelled and with a colourful past, is keeping a terrible secret. She tries her best to conform her family to French middle class expectations when all at home is far from ordinary.

Wilson, a Nigerian man with a ticket to a new life studying at a New York university, falls victim to the French immigration system and finds himself stranded in Paris awaiting a visa that never comes.

Assimilation is a story of unravelling family secrets, belonging, betrayal and inherited trauma that will transport readers through layers of time and place, carefully steered by the author’s compelling prose. Following her lauded debut This is Not Who We Are (Seren, 2022), Sophie Buchaillard returns with another novel set against the backdrop of significant political and humanitarian events, and – by questioning how we view migration today – presents us with an important book for our time.