Jealousy, Hope, Love, Frustration, Pinochet & the PLO Craftsman, plumber, brick-layer, ironware merchant, script writer, filmmaker, and now novelist, Nan Aurousseau has hewed his vast trove of on-the-job tales into a thrilling novel called Overalls. Like so many beleaguered artists, the adroit Frenchman wrote the autobiographical bestseller (not a memoir, mind you) while down and…Continue Reading
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
Parisian Pandemonium Vargas Plagues Paris, Orsenna’s French Lessons, And Brouwers Skewers Dutch Boomers The specter of bubonic plague coming down the mail chute rattles all of Paris in an uncannily topical work by the French archaeologist and crime writer Fred Vargas. In the author’s latest novel, Leave Quickly and Return Late (which, incidentally, was written…Continue Reading
