It’s
that time of year again. The biannual frenzy of book publishing
in France known as the rentrée littéraire is
upon us. Pull up an armchair and choose from a stack of over 680
freshly printed novels, around 475 of them French.
Paris-based
Belgian novelist Amélie Nothomb, famous for wearing big
hats and writing between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. every day, has whipped
out a new novel every year since 1999, when she made a hit with
Stupeur et Tremblements (Fear and Trembling). The critics
are not being kind about this year’s offering, Journal
d’Hirondelle (Albin Michel), the story of a contract
killer who falls hopelessly in love with a woman he has just assassinated,
calling it slight, cliché-ridden, boring and forgettable.
That hasn’t stopped it from topping the best-seller lists,
however.
Sensationalism
is also the stock in trade of Christine Angot, who made her name
in 1999 with L’Inceste, in which the main character
(called Christine Angot) has an incestuous relationship with her
father. Now everyone is talking about her latest work of autofiction
(fictionalized autobiography), Rendez-vous (Flammarion),
which is being tipped as the probable winner of the Prix Goncourt,
France’s top literary prize, to be awarded in November.
Tamer than her sexually explicit earlier efforts, Rendez-vous
describes a woman’s affairs with two men, a banker
and a young actor. The latter, a fan of her books, asks her to
write the story of their affair as they live it.
From the
Paris suburbs comes the fresh voice of a young woman of Algerian
descent, Faïza Guène. Her first novel, Kiffe Kiffe
Demain, sold 200,000 copies and was translated into 26 languages.
Just out is Du Rêve pour les Oufs (Hachette), about
a young woman living in the suburbs who has lost her mother to
violence in Algeria and must care for her disabled father and
delinquent younger brother.
Nancy Huston,
a Canadian who has long lived in France and even writes many of
her books in French (translating herself those that she writes
in English), has published Lignes de Faille (Actes Sud),
which explores the lives of different generations of an American
family of German origin.
In case
it seems that women are grabbing all the attention, let’s
mention a few works by men. Laurent Gaudé, winner of the
Prix Goncourt in 2004 for Soleil des Scorta, takes on
the currently hot topic of illegal immigration in Eldorado
(Actes Sud), while TV news presenter Patrick Poivre d'Arvor and
his brother Olivier, a diplomat, have written a novel, Disparaître
(Gallimard), that purports to transcribe the thoughts of Lawrence
of Arabia as he lay dying after a motorcycle accident. Another
big name from across the Channel, the artist Francis Bacon, has
inspired Alain Absire’s Deux Personnages sur un Lit
avec Témoins (Fayard), the story of a painter’s
twisted relationship with his lover and favorite model.
That’s
just the top of the stack. For the rest, visit your friendly neighborhood
bookstore.
Heidi
Ellison
©
2006 Paris Update |
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