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FEBRUARY 2014
 
BOOKS – IDEAS – KNOWLEDGE – RESSOURCES
 

This spring, French authors will be touring the United States with a special focus on music and poetry. Rachida Madani, Pierre Alféri, and Anne Portugal will present their art, often with musical accompaniment. Also, Fréderic Gros, philosopher,  will be on tour to present his endearing bestseller A Philosophy of Walking  that explores how the act of walking has influenced some of the greatest thinkers in history. These authors, whose books have been translated into English, speak both French and English and they will be delighted to meet other audiences all over the Midwest. You’re welcome to invite them.


We would like to take this opportunity to highlight the French literary landscape through selected readings, resources and new initiatives. A few selected readings, articles "Why Do French Books Sell Abroad" and “Why Do French Comics Sell Abroad? “by our Book office in New York,  an online list of French titles translated and published in the USA, and the "coups de Coeur" of a few avid readers like Judith Thurman, Steve Wasserman , Susan Harris and Sam Sacks shows the vitality of French language books in translation. The Cultural Services of the French Embassy strongly believe that each link in the literary chain –the author, the agent, the publisher, the translator, the distributor, the bookstore- must be vigorously supported.  So, we take this opportunity to list the resources available to translators and publishers.


In autumn, the French Cultural Services in Chicago and Houston will launch a new French authors’ tour, intended primarily for book clubs, writing workshops and programs, as well as independent bookstore in the two regions, while promoting new French titles translated by local publishers. Spring is not here yet: so if you must stay at home, read French…!

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BOOK NEWS

On February 6th, the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and FACE hosted the first French Voices Award Ceremony, with a special homage to the late publisher André Schiffrin. The French Voices Grand Prize was awarded to translator Melanie Mauthner and Archipelago Books for Notre-Dame du Nil by Scholastique Mukasonga.

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On the occasion of the 41st Angoulême Comics Festival, which ended earlier this month, what better time to take a look at the state of French comics on the American book market?

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NEW TITLES
Written by Edmund White

When Edmund White moved to Paris in 1983, he couldn’t speak French, and only knew two people in the entire city.  When he left fifteen years later, he was fluent enough to broadcast on French radio and TV, and in his work as a journalist, he’d made the acquaintance of everyone from Yves Saint Laurent to Catherine Deneuve to Michel Foucault. This is a memoir which gossips and ruminates, and offers a brilliant examination of a city and a culture eternally imbued with an aura of enchantment.

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Written by Pierre Gabus and Romuald Reutimann, translated by Natacha Ruck & Ken Grobe

Following the critically acclaimed Season 1 of what Jeff Smith described as "...a dream mash-up of Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy, noir and gangster films, as well as 10 cent comic books from the '40s... oh, and toss in Babar the Elephant for good measure..." comes an equally riveting second season, concluding this first story cycle.

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Written by Etienne Balibar, translated by James Ingram

First published in French in 2010, Equaliberty brings together essays by Étienne Balibar, one of the preeminent political theorists of our time. The book is organized around equaliberty, a term coined by Balibar to connote the tension between the two ideals of modern democracy: equality (social rights and political representation) and liberty (the freedom citizens have to contest the social contract).

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FRENCH AUTHORS ON TOUR
US Tour : April 2014
University of Wisconsin-Madison (April 13-15, 2014)

Rachida Madani, a native of Morocco, has published several volumes of poetry in French, a language she also taught for thirty years. A lifelong political militant, she expresses her resistance: "not by shouting slogans and waving banners. I fight with my words." Her Tales of a Severed Head (Yale University Press 2012, transl. from the French by Marilyn Hacker) was a finalist for the 2013 Poetry in Translation Award, sponsored by the PEN American Center.

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US Tour: April 24 - May 12, 2014

Pierre Alféri is one of today’s most innovative French poets and the son of philosopher Jacques Derrida. His works include Night and Day (translated by Kate Campbell, Fence Books, 2012) and Kub Or (translated by Cole Swensen as Oxo, Burning Deck). Alféri nurtures collaboration with other artists and often performs with musicians, painters and fellow poets.

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US Tour: April 1 - 15, 2014 (dates flexible)

French Poet Anne Portugal's recent work Définitif bob, translated by Jennifer Moxley as Absolute bob (Burning Deck Press), has been the subject of considerable critical and popular interest. Burning Deck has also published Portugal’s chapbook, Quisite Moment, translated by Rosmarie Waldrop (2008). Her work is influenced by, and often references, Jacques Roubaud as well as contemporary sources such as instruction booklets and video games.

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US Tour: April 23- May 2, 2014

A professor of philosophy at the University of Paris XII and the Institute of Political Studies, Frédéric Gros is the editor of Michel Foucault’s last lectures at the Collège de France. He has written books on psychiatry, law, and war, including Foucault et la folie, Etats de violence and most recently, Le Principe Sécurité. His A Philosophy of Walking (Verso, 2014) explores how the act of walking has influenced some of the greatest thinkers in history: Thoreau, Gandhi, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Kant and Schopenhauer. It has sold over 40,000 copies in France and shines as a poetic call to think in motion.

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TRANSLATION RESIDENCIES, GRANTS AND AWARDS

Provides funding for translators wishing to stay in France in order to translate French works in the fields of literature or humanities.

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The Cultural Services of the French Embassy and La Villa Gillet offer residencies for translators (two to four per year) at La Villa Gillet in Lyon, France in the field of literature, political and social sciences, history, and contemporary art.

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Provides grants to support the translation of book-length works of fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, or drama that have not previously appeared in English or have appeared only in an egregiously flawed translation.

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The French Voices Award honors both translators and American publishers for their work. The program's goal is to create a US-published series of books representing the very best of contemporary French writing in every field. This ambitious program by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy is aimed to support translations from French into English. Applications are accepted twice per year and candidates are selected by a literary committee. 

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PUBLISHING GRANTS & PRIZES

Designed to support translation of French books into other languages, this grants covers the cost of translation per se, not costs incurred for production or promotion. The commission meets twice a year, in March and September. For those works which it selects, the commission proposes a subsidy ranging between 20% and 50% of the cost of translation.

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The Institut Français offers grants to American publishers to help with the cost of acquiring the rights to French works.

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The Hemingway Grant allows publishers to receive financial help for the translation and publication of a French work into English. Grant beneficiaries are selected by the Book Department of the French Embassy in the United States.

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The French Voices Award honors both translators and American publishers for their work.

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INSTITUT FRANÇAIS INTELLECTUAL DEBATES GRANT

Dedicated to debate and ideas, the Fonds d'Alembert of the Institut Français can co-finance conferences, seminars and forums organized by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy with american partners. Each year, approximately fifty projects are supported by this program. For more information, contact the French Cultural Services in Chicago

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RESSOURCES

The list of resources has been complied by the Book Department of the French Embassy. It contains a number of useful links for both industry professionals and people with a general interest in books.

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French Culture
IN THIS ISSUE
BOOK NEWS
 
NEW TITLES
 
FRENCH AUTHORS ON TOUR
 
TRANSLATION RESIDENCIES, GRANTS AND AWARDS
 
PUBLISHING GRANTS & PRIZES
 
INSTITUT FRANÇAIS INTELLECTUAL DEBATES GRANT
 
RESSOURCES
 
 

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