Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile

Tiny, hare-lipped orphan Mary Ann Sate – persecuted for her ‘devil’s mark’ and dismissed as a half-wit – is taken in by Mr Harland Cottrell as a servant in the Stroud Valleys of the 1830s. Living in total obscurity, she dies without leaving a trace, it seems, beyond a single line in the local death register: ‘Mary Ann Sate, 9 October 1887, Imbecile’.

But Mary Ann was cleverer and more observant than those around her credited and, towards the end of her life, she took up a pen to write her own truth. Set against the upheavals of enclosure and the weavers’ riots, we are granted an immersive, domestic view of history, a vivid and poignant account of what it was to live through those times, amid the haunting landscape she so lovingly evokes.

In this fictional found memoir, novelist Alice Jolly casts an unflinching female eye on real events, and gives joyful, poetic voice to the silenced women of the past.

O orfana minuscula, cu buze de iepure, Mary Ann Sate - persecutata pentru „semnul diavolului” si respinsa ca o prostie - este luata de domnul Harland Cottrell ca slujitor in vaile Stroud din anii 1830. Traind intr-o obscuritate totala, ea moare fara sa lase urme, se pare, dincolo de o singura linie din registrul local al mortii: „Mary Ann Sate, 9 octombrie 1887, Imbecil”. Dar Mary Ann era mai inteligenta si mai atenta decat cei din jur si, spre sfarsitul vietii, a luat un stilou pentru a-si scrie propriul adevar.