Sophie Buchaillard is a freelance writer, editor, critic and translator living in South Wales. Her second novel, Assimilation was described as a blend of magic realism and thriller. Her first novel, This is Not Who We Are, was nominated for the Wales Book of the Year. Recently, she was a finalist for the Bridport Poetry Prize. Her debut poetry pamphlet is due out in October. She is currently working on her third novel.
Sophie Buchaillard was born in Paris to a family with roots in Morocco and South East Asia, and lived in France, Spain, England, and the United States. She moved to Wales at the age of twenty-three, and has lived there longer than anywhere else by now.
Sophie writes about belonging through fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Her second novel, Assimilation (Honno, 2024), examines how travel, memory, and family stories influence our identities, often clashing with the idea of a nation-state. Her first novel, This Is Not Who We Are (Seren Books), was shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award and the Wales Book of the Year 2023.
She has contributed essays to Woman’s Wales? (Parthian, 2024), An Open Door (Parthian, 2022), and the COVID-themed collection Together and Apart (Square Wheel Press, 2021). Her essays have appeared in various literary magazines, including Wales Arts Review, ByLine Times, Modron Magazine and The Friday Poem.
She edits and translates works from French to English and serves on the Translation Board for The Other Side of Hope, a magazine for refugee and immigrant writers. She was the Book Reviews Editor for Intersectional Perspectives: Identity, Culture, and Society.
Sophie holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from Cardiff University, and she taught there until February 2024. Her research focused on travel writing's impact on identity from colonial times to the present. She was also a Hay Festival Writer at Work in 2023. Currently, she is working on a memoir and a collaborative non-fiction project related to her thesis.
Recently, Sophie started writing poetry. She was a finalist in the International Bridport Poetry Prize 2024, and her debut collection is due in 2025.
Assimilation
(Honno)
A mother with a colourful past. A daughter desperate to find herself. Two women wrestling with unspoken traumas, hoping to find peace and somewhere to rebuild their lives.
One family's story set against the backdrop of some of the biggest political and humanitarian events of the century, this book explores the challenges of identity, belonging and womanhood, and the stories we tell in order to fit in.
Spanning continents and slipping between time, this sophisticated and affecting novel shows how the secrets of the past never quite disappear, casting long, long shadows over the present day. Mixing elements of magical realism with high-octane thriller, Assimilation boldly takes in a great sweep of the world, hurtling us from cocaine cartels in Colombia to gothic mental hospitals in Wales, bridging the baked lands of Morocco and the elegant avenues of Paris. It’s quite the trip, tellingly taking us through the times in which we live.
Jon Gower, The Turning Tide: A Biography of the Irish Sea
Assimilation is a perceptive and compelling novel that invites the reader to seek out new ways of negotiating the labyrinth of personal and cultural identity. Sophie Buchaillard weaves her tale with skill and acumen, offering rare insights into migration, foreignness, family, and much else besides.
Richard Gwyn, The Colour of a Dog Running Away
Such a brilliant book to travel with and to read in those ‘in between’ places. A hymn to the complicated nature of home and the somehow serendipitous yet inevitable ways we find it. I loved this scrapbook of memory and longing.
Caryl Lewis, Drift (Winner Wales Book of the Year 2023)
A story from the past with clear relevance in our current climate, Buchaillard holds up a mirror and asks us to reflect on the consequences of our own choices.
Connor Allen, The Making of a Monster (Former Children Laureate for Wales)
This is Not Who We Are
(Seren Books)
1994. The Genocide in Rwanda is raging.
Over that summer, two sixteen-year-old girls exchange an unlikely correspondence between Paris and the refugee camp of Goma. One day, the letters stop.
Twenty-five years later, Iris embarks on a quest to discover what happened to Victoria. Could it be that those responsible are closer than she thought?
This Is Not Who We Are was included in the Wales Arts Review top ten Welsh novels for 2022, and shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Trust Fiction Award and the Wales Book of the Year 2023.
Sophie Buchaillard’s novel is a stark and terrifying reminder that only the most fragile screen separates the familiar from the abyss, the comforts of home from the most obscene and extreme violence. It is an elegant and sombre reflection on what it means to retain one’s humanity in the face of a brutal and dehumanising cataclysm.
Richard Gwyn, author of the Colour of a Dog Running Away
You write beautifully. Right from the beginning ‘If humanity could crawl into such a device, could we erase the indelible marks which stain us?’ etc etc! When i read a book the characters can become my friends and I don't want to leave them! Your book was like this. Not easy to read in parts but we need to know about what really happened in Rwanda. I have read other books about the genocide but I do feel yours has been genuinely researched.
Jane Munro, reader
A stunning first novel that hooks you very quickly and won’t let you go… Searingly well written, this is both shocking and beautiful on the nature of brutality and forgiveness. I can’t recommend this book enough!
El Tophero, Amazon review
An Open Door:
New Travel Writing for a Precarious Century
(Parthian Books)
Edited by Steven Lovatt
The history of Wales as a destination and confection of English Romantic writers is well known, but this book reverses the process, turning a Welsh gaze on the rest of the world.
Writers featured:
Eluned Gramich / Grace Quantock / Faisal Ali / Sophie Buchaillard / Giancarlo Gemin / Siân Melangell Dafydd / Mary-Ann Constantine / Kandace Siobhan Walker / Neil Gower / Julie Brominicks / Electra Rhodes
An Open Door was included in the Wales Arts Review top ten non-fiction for 2022.
Woman’s Wales?
(Parthian books)
Edited by Emma Schofield
The Dissonance and Diversity of Devolution Through the Lives of Women in Wales.
Contributors include:
Mari Ellis Dunning/Jasmine Donahaye/Norena Shopland/Rae Howells/
Grace Quantock/Krystal Lowe/Sophie Buchaillard/Nansi Eccott/Jessica Laimann