Review | In the Company of Men – The Ebola Tales, Véronqiue Tadjo | HopeRoad Publishing

In the Company of Men – The Ebola Tales by Véronqiue Tadjo is a beautifully written and translated, stark collection of concise narratives about the Ebola epidemic of 2014. A short but unforgettable novel, it offers a poetic vision of sustained horror, fear, and excruciating pain. It questions the blindness of humanity in the face of potential catastrophic collapse as rampant greed, willful ignorance and avoidable self-destruction threaten to decimate planet earth.

Originally published in France in 2017, there is something prophetic about these tales in light of today’s coronavirus pandemic, and the grim topicality of potential or ongoing infectious disease threats. 

Continue reading Review | In the Company of Men – The Ebola Tales, Véronqiue Tadjo | HopeRoad Publishing

Review | The Fool & Other Moral Tales, Anne Serre | Les Fugitives

Anne Serre is a remarkable and unusual writer; her pen a scalpel dissecting the human condition with painful precision. The Fool & Other Moral Tales – three novellas – is lyrical and disturbing, wonderful and terrible, arousing and devastating. The hallucinatory, and at times nightmarish quality, is beautifully rendered by translator Mark Hutchinson.

All three tales adventure through the multiple guises and meanings of The Fool. Is he a fallen angel, a grotesque carrier of vice and folly bringing wisdom in his wake as a consequence of blind faith, hopeless romance and reckless desire, or is he an abortive saint, a mistaken revolutionary? The ultimate shapeshifter, he can lead you to Heaven or Hell or, if you get stuck, into the abyss.  

Continue reading Review | The Fool & Other Moral Tales, Anne Serre | Les Fugitives

Spotlight | La Familia Grande, Camille Kouchner | Éditions du Seuil

The publication of La Familia Grande by Camille Kouchner reveals how incest is everpresent at the highest levels of French society, even among the most glamorous, powerful, bohemian, left wing intellectual Parisian élite, known as “la gauche caviar” (champagne socialists). In France, one in ten people say they are victims of incest according to Ipsos.

Camille Kouchner is the daughter of the late feminist, political scientist and lecturer Évelyne Pisier, and Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs under President Nicolas Sarkozy, having previously been a minister during Mitterand’s presidency. In 2010, the Jerusalem Post considered Bernard Kouchner the fifteenth most influential Jew in the world.

Continue reading Spotlight | La Familia Grande, Camille Kouchner | Éditions du Seuil

Guest Review | Lucy Popescu | The White Dress, Nathalie Léger | Les Fugitives

The White Dress is the final part of a trilogy of works by Nathalie Léger that began with Exposition, translated by Amanda DeMarco, and published by Les Fugitives in 2019.

Brides on Tour: peace not war

On 8 March 2008, Pippa Bacca, a 33-year-old Italian feminist artist, decided to hitchhike from Milan to Jerusalem wearing a white wedding dress to symbolise “marriage between different peoples and nations.” Her aim was to promote world peace and she intended to document her experiences by video. However, on 31 March, having temporarily separated from her fellow bride on tour, Silvia Moro, Pippa was picked up by Murat Karataş in Gezbe, Turkey. He raped and strangled her and dumped her body in a shallow grave among some bushes. Léger /Léger’s narrator meditates on Bacca’s sorrowful journey and interweaves the story of a mother and daughter’s relationship. Natasha Lehrer’s perceptive English translation was notably published on the twelfth anniversary of Bacca’s death.

Continue reading Guest Review | Lucy Popescu | The White Dress, Nathalie Léger | Les Fugitives

Guest Review | Henrietta Foster | The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos

Henrietta Foster is an established journalist, TV producer and film-maker. Her latest film Beyond the Grace Note (Sky Arts) looks at some of the most remarkable and resilient female conductors, and the joys and challenges of the profession in the male-dominated world of orchestral conducting. Her previous work includes Art & Islam with Hari Kunzru for the BBC (2004), and Millennium Minds with philosopher, Alain de Botton, for Channel 4 (1999).

In January of this year when the world was quite normal with open functioning cinemas there was one film I really wanted to see: Le Mystère Henri Pick. I’d liked the other films based on David Foenkinos’ novels and even better this one starred the marvellous Fabrice Luchini. Sadly I missed both screenings at the Ciné Lumière in London because in those far off days there was more than one thing to do in the evenings. I went to the Institut Français library and checked the novel out but just before lockdown someone else requested the book and I had to return it unread. Henri and Henrietta seemed fated not to meet.

Then to my great joy I saw that Pushkin Press was publishing a translation of the novel and in conjunction with Walter Presents no less. Walter Iuzzolino and his collection of continental European television dramas are the only real reasons to watch Channel Four now that Homeland is over. Putting aside my guilt about not reading the novel in French, I asked Pushkin Press for a copy to review.
Continue reading Guest Review | Henrietta Foster | The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos

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