In tired, hot Paris at the end of August, a group of friends, who'd rather still be at the sea, meet for a dinner in one couple's apartment.

Taking us behind the shutters of the Sixth Arrondissement, with a cast of characters that both delight and repel, fractured relationships, manipulation, bad behaviour and desperation are all laid bare in this very contemporary take on a Parisian huis clos story.

What starts as just a little dinner ends up having monumental consequences for everyone.

The book was shortlisted for the 2024 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman and won the 2023 Prix Littéraire Gisèle Halimi for women's writing.



"Full of soul, with characters who are real, relatable and flawed. I loved Just a Little Dinner." Ceci Browning, THE TIMES



The dramatic tension between the two couples is electrifying as the evening takes its unexpected turns.

"In the cinema and the theatre, feasts that descend into disaster are a distinctly French speciality. Cécile Tlili manages to reinvent this tradition with her very first novel." PARIS MATCH

"A hurtful and sadly all-too commonplace human comedy, wonderfully described by an author we will hear a lot more from." Laurance Caracalla, LE FIGARO LITTÉRAIRE

"The dramatic tension between the two couples is electrifying as the evening takes its unexpected turns." LE MONDE DES LIVRES



Devilishly tasty



If, however, you have room on your plate for only one dinner-party novel this summer, I'd suggest Just A Little Dinner



It is yet another testament to the importance of small presses for fiction in translation. Though I had the characters' company for a single evening, I savoured every moment.



I loved Just a Little Dinner by Cécile Tlili, a newly translated tale that offers a searingly contemporary take on the Huis Clos story.



What makes Just a Little Dinner so brilliant is the steady revelation of how the lives of the four characters, each relatable and inherently flawed, are intertwined, in many more ways than we see on the surface. It has a similar flavour to Vincenzo Latronico's novel Perfection, hinting at how the expectations we have for our lives rarely line up with reality, but is richer and meatier. After finishing the book, I felt gloriously full.