The latest addition to my website is Marie Redonnet‘s La femme au Colt 45 [The Woman with the Colt 45]. Redonnet seemed to have stopped publishing but she has now appeared with a new novel and a new publisher. This novel is even grimmer than some of her previous works. It is set in two … Read more
I was a long time subscriber to the French literary magazine La Quinzaine Littéraire, founded by the wonderful writer and editor Maurice Nadeau, who died in 2013 aged 102! He was writing and contributing till almost the end. After his death, financial troubles which had occurred before Nadeau’s death re-emerged and publication was suspended for … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Claude Ollier‘s Déconnection (later: Obscuration) (Disconnection). Ollier was one of the French writers associated with Editions de Minuit and the nouveau roman but he drifted away from them and set his own course. This novel consists of two stories told in parallel which may or may not be … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Mathias Enard‘s Boussole (Compass). This is about one man, an Austrian musicologist called Franz Ritter, who is currently ill with an unspecified disease, who throws away the tablets his doctor gives him and lies awake at night, thinking about various things. These include his unrequited love for the … Read more
‘Tis the season for la rentrée, which, in France, refers both to going back to school at the beginning of the new school year but, more importantly, for us, the host of new books that are published around now, in time both for the prize-giving season and, presumably, the Christmas market. This is not unique … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Michel Houellebecq‘s Soumission [Submission]. This novel has received considerable pre-publication publicity because of its controversial subject matter. The book, set in 2022, follows François, a university professor who teaches nineteenth century French literature in the University of Paris III and is a specialist on the writer, J-K Huysmans. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Irène Némirovsky‘s Les Chiens et les loups (The Dogs and the Wolves). This novel, unlike some of her others, is set, initially, in Kiev, where the Sinner family, a lower-middle class family, reside. Israel is a widower, bringing up a young daughter, Ada, and supporting his father-in-law. He … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Irène Némirovsky‘s Suite française (Suite française), a novel written in 1940-41 but only published in 2004. This book is in two parts. The first part tells of a few people who live in Paris and what they do just before and just after the German invasion of France … Read more
We have already had the Prix Femina – Haitian novelist Yanick Lahens won with Bain de lune, and the Prix Médicis – Antoine Volodine won with Terminus radieux and today we got the Prix Renaudot with David Foenkinos winning with Charlotte and the Prix Goncourt with Lydie Salvayre winning with Pas Pleurer. None of these … Read more