In Marie NDiaye’s Spellbinding New Novel, Witchcraft Stays in the Family
Witchcraft was traditionally a form of occult knowledge: esoteric, hidden, available only to initiates. Now, though, with the widespread circulation of magic manuals, grimoires, and related compendia—with the recording, on paper, of words, spells, histories, stories—witchcraft has taken an irreversible step into the exoteric realm. The chain through which it once passed, from trusted person…
