Big Fish

One night in the mid-1990s, my mother had a dream that marked the beginning of a difficult period in our lives. She fell ill with a mysterious condition, which doctors attributed to the lingering emotional traces of past events. More than ten years later, she finally spoke of the dream she had kept hidden from everyone: an unknown, terrifying creature that grew rapidly as she struggled, in vain, to wake up, trapped in a kind of limbo. She has spoken of that night only once, and has always refused to answer any questions about it. Since then, a monster has lived with her against her will.

Big Fish is a personal narrative of twenty years of my life, drawn from my observations of the daily life of a woman living alongside a tamed and wounded monster.