Tag Archives: French Publishers’ Agency

How to Get Your Second Job in Publishing

(Written from interviews conducted by Elisabeth Watson and Kimberly Lew) Getting your foot in the door is important, but it’s also only the first step in building a career in the publishing industry. Though there have been many articles and stories about how to navigate a first job, very few delve into what happens next….Continue Reading

Bringing Bandes Dessinées to the U.S.A.

“I don’t know why, but there are often naked persons in French comics,” said Sylvain Coissard of the Sylvain Coissard Agency. He was one of the panelists at the French Publishers’ Agency’s “From Bande Dessinée to Graphic Novel: Drawing Two Traditions Together,” which took place in November at NYU’s Maison Française. Coissard was speaking about…Continue Reading

International Bestsellers: The Mysterious Dame

Desperately Seeking Sister, Swede Picks Up Speed A Genealogical Guessing Game A bevy of menacing women is tearing through the list in Argentina as Marisa Grinstein profiles fourteen femmes fatales who lay to waste the stereotype of the prim and proper lady in LadyKillers. Cheated out of their destiny and left bitter with baggage, each…Continue Reading

International Bestsellers: Running for Cover

Swede Heads for the Hills, Plato’s PR at the Bar, Ultra-Marathoner Darts Through Europe A long-forgotten hero of speed gets his moment on the proverbial winner’s podium in German author Marc Buhl’s biathlon of fact and fiction, RASHIDA or THE RACE TO THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. Mensen Ernst was born in the late 18th…Continue Reading

Staying Alive

Iraqi Exile in Denmark, Czech Band Beats Persecution, Chinese Memoir Smuggled to France Defining the immigrant experience is about as easy as finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, yet a former Iraqi citizen now living in Denmark has penned her contribution to this genre with a “quiet, sad and nevertheless unsentimental portrayal of [her]…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

She’s Got Game Gablé’s Bold Move in Germany, Forest Fling in Holland, And Spain’s Answer to Umberto Eco Move over, Monopoly. Board game junkies worldwide are in for a surprise this month as author and former university lecturer in Medieval Studies Rebecca Gablé’s quirky novel The Settlers of Catan hits stores and the German bestseller…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

The New Czech Comet Legatova Aloft, Sabach Soused in the Czech Republic, Plus Russia’s Own ‘Magic Mountain’ Streaking across the firmament on her way to the #1 spot in the Czech Republic this month, 84-year-old Kveta Legatova is a “new meteor in the Czech literary skies” who burst on the scene at the age of…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

In a semiological send-up worthy of a Roland Barthes essay, Christine Orban falls head over heels into the gap between le geste and la parole as her latest novel The Silence of Men takes aim at the bestseller list in France (it’s currently at #12). Described as a marvel of “intense, concise writing” full of…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

My Generation Down and Out in Denmark, Angot Gasps in France, And Sweden’s Crime Duo Hits 30 Junkies, pushers, ‘narco-tarts’, and their degenerate demi-monde come crackling to life in Denmark, as Jakob Ejersbo’s novel Nordkraft (the title translates roughly as “Northern Power”) barrels up the list with its “oddly encouraging” tale of a generation searching…Continue Reading

International Fiction Bestsellers

Sketches of Spain Gala’s Jungle of Love and Aldecoa’s Enigma, Plus Holst’s Uppity Danish Women At the colossal Fnac megastore in Barcelona last month, you had to bushwhack your way past bales of Jean Auel’s The Shelters of Stone — the ubiquitously promoted tome could be had in no less than four separate editions: Catalan,…Continue Reading