16, rue de l’Odéon – 75006 Paris - FRANCE è Foreign rights catalogue 2018 è London Book Fair Foreign rights manager : Lucie Lesvenan
In the following countries we are represented by : Danemark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, The Netherlands : Arabella Cruse LITERARY AGENCY WANDEL CRUSE Russia and baltic countries : Anastasia Lester ANASTASIA LESTER LITERARY AGENCY
LITERATURE
CE GENRE DE FILLE THAT KIND OF GIRL
Sylvie Bocqui
« I did not like someone of my sex, I loved someone of my kind. I wanted to be someone like that, her, that kind of girl. » ●
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The years have passed. A woman remembers her first love, at least the most fervent, the most helpless, the most risky. For a singular woman, beautiful and free, which she was not even. At least, she thought. She remembers having lost it, even forgotten, but never really. She has memory, it must be said. This text is the story of a fascination, an identification, a fidelity too. A white and incandescent writing, patient and urgent.
Publication date : May 2018 120 pages
Sylvie Bocqui lives and works in Strasbourg. Her first novel, Une saison was published by Arléa in 2013. ●
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« Je n’aimais pas quelqu’un de mon sexe, j’aimais quelqu’un de mon genre. Je voulais être quelqu’un de ce genre, le sien, ce genre de fille. » Les années ont passé. Une femme se remémore son premier amour, du moins le plus fervent, le plus désemparé, le plus risqué. Pour une femme singulière, belle et libre, ce qu’elle n’était même pas. Du moins le croyait-elle. Elle se remémore l’avoir perdue, oubliée même, mais jamais vraiment. Elle a de la mémoire, il faut le dire. Ce texte est l’histoire d’une fascination, d’une identification, d’une fidélité aussi. Une écriture blanche et incandescente, patiente et urgente.
LITERATURE
LE GRAND ECRIVAIN THE GREAT WRITER
Jean-François Merle
The great writer, who was once the author of three masterpieces that made him a living myth, fails to write his Memoirs, much to the annoyance of his publisher, who sees a world-wide success escape her. She therefore has the idea of adding to him the narrator of this story, a young writer himself with a lack of inspiration, to help him write his work. ●
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Publication date : May 2018 260 pages
But very quickly, the narrator is disturbed by the attitude of the great writer, far removed from the idea he had of it. Who is this man and especially how could he write this world-renowned work? The Great Writer reads like a thriller, where nothing is ever certain, and where each hypothesis is challenged by a new discovery. It’s a walk sometimes burlesque but sometimes more serious in the corridors of Arts and the publishing world, that the author, the true one, knows well.
Jean-François Merle is a publisher at Omnibus and Presses de la Cité. In 1987 he received the Prize of the First novel for Cale sèche, published by Arléa and unanimously hailed by the press. After a silence of thirty years old, he returns to writing with a communicative brilliance. He i s a l s o a t r a n s l a t o r (G re g o r y Macdonald, Magnus Mills, Jasper Fforde, Gatsby for Pocket Publishing). He teaches the history of criminal literature in Paris III. ●
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Le grand écrivain, auteur naguère de trois chefs-d’oeuvre qui ont fait de lui un mythe vivant, ne parvient pas à écrire ses Mémoires, au grand dépit de son éditrice qui voit lui échapper un succès d’ampleur mondiale. Elle a donc l’idée de lui adjoindre le narrateur de cette histoire, jeune écrivain lui-même en panne, afin de l’aider à écrire son ouvrage. Mais très vite, le narrateur est troublé par l’attitude du grand écrivain, très éloignée de l’idée qu’il s’en faisait. Qui est donc cet homme et surtout comment a-t-il pu écrire cette œuvre mondialement reconnue ? Le Grand écrivain se lit comme un thriller, où rien n’est jamais sûr, et où chaque hypothèse est remise en cause par une nouvelle découverte. C’est une balade quelquefois burlesque mais parfois plus grave dans les coursives des Lettres et du milieu de l’édition, que l’auteur, le vrai, connaît bien.
LITERATURE / ARTS
MADELEINE OU L’INCANDESCENCE MADELEINE OR INCANDESCENCE
Barbara Lecompte
A dark-haired woman sits alone in the night, lit by the flame of a candle. It's Madeleine. Madeleine in the mirror, Madeleine in the two flames, Madeleine by candlelight, or Madeleine in the book, mysterious canvases that these masterpieces of the painter Lorraine, Georges de La Tour. From the court of King Louis XIII to the secret of the artist's studio, from the antechamber of Cardinal Richelieu to burned and ravaged Lorraine by the war, Barbara Lecompte wonders about the riddle of the Madeleine and the secret from La Tour's obsession.
Publication date : May 2018 140 pages
National lecturer in Art History since 1998, Barbara Lecompte lives in the south of France. By the same author : Marquise au portrait, Arléa, 2014 L’Encrier de Madame Sévigné, Arléa, 2017 ●
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Off the beaten track, she offers a sensitive analysis around the biblical character of Mary Magdalene and continues the favorite model of the painter to the cave of Sainte-Baume, in Provence, where the holy hermit would have ended his life. Madeleine or incandescence, a subtle light on the questions of the Master of the night.
Une femme brune est assise seule dans la nuit, éclairée par la flamme d’une bougie. C’est Madeleine. Madeleine au miroir, Madeleine aux deux flammes, Madeleine à la chandelle, ou encore, Madeleine au livre, mystérieuses toiles que ces chefs-d’œuvre du peintre lorrain, Georges de La Tour. De la cour du roi Louis XIII au secret de l’atelier de l’artiste, de l’antichambre du cardinal de Richelieu à la Lorraine incendiée et ravagée par les guerres, Barbara Lecompte s’interroge sur l’énigme des Madeleine et le secret de l’obsession de La Tour. Sortant des sentiers battus, elle propose une analyse sensible autour du personnage biblique de Marie-Madeleine et poursuit le modèle favori du peintre jusqu’à la grotte de la Sainte-Baume, en Provence, où la sainte ermite aurait fini sa vie. Madeleine ou l’incandescence, un subtil éclairage sur les interrogations du Maître de la nuit.
LITERATURE / NARRATIVE / ZEN
MA VIE DANS LES MONTS MY LIFE IN THE MOUNTAINS
Antoine Marcel
Antoine Marcel tells the story of a life of today removed from the hustle and bustle of the world, in the meeting of what is (light of the evening and the morning, rock, river, season ,birds and wood to be cut for the winter) and the sensitive thought (the questioning on the existence, the reading, the life in all its amplitude and its geography, and the love to be shared). ●
Publication date : April 2018 300 pages
Born in Paris in 1949, Antoine Marcel left the Sorbonne for long stays in Africa, the United States and the Middle East, with a predilection for Asia, and especially for China, where he regularly stays. Removed somewhere in the causses, in the south of France, like the hermits-scholars of ancient China, Antoine Marcel now devotes his time to study, writing, Zen meditation and walking. Author of about fifteen titles of which Carnet chinois (Arléa, 2002), Traité de la cabane solitaire (Arléa, 2006), Le Sourire de Boudha (Les Deux Océans, 2011), Un Monde se lève (Accarias L’Originel, 2013), Rejoindre l’âge du ciel et de la terre (Accarias L’Originel, 2014), La Liberté spirituelle (Accarias L’Originel, 2016).
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All rights available 5.000 copies sold of his previous book Traité de la cabane solitaire
After the highly acclaimed Traité de la cabane solitaire (Arléa), Antoine Marcel invites us to choose anonymous life, similar to that of the Far Eastern scholars, but inscribed in our thundering modernity. « A life apart seemed eccentric only at the counterpoint of the ambition to make a career. The man of the track, in China and Japan, was a respectable figure. To retire in the mountains and to live from the air of the time is already to become Immortal. Because what is the opposite option, finally ? It's shining in the living rooms. It is the notoriety, the success, the adulation, all vain things for which has some higher ambition. We know the consequences. »
Antoine Marcel fait le récit d’une vie d’aujourd’hui retirée loin de l’agitation du monde, dans la rencontre de ce qui est (lumière du soir et du matin, rocher, rivière, saison, oiseaux et bois à couper pour l’hiver) et la pensée sensible (l’interrogation sur l’existence, la lecture, la vie dans toute son ampleur et sa géographie, et l’amour à partager). Après le très remarqué Traité de la cabane solitaire (Arléa), Antoine Marcel nous convie à choisir la vie anonyme, semblable à celle des lettrés d’Extrême-Orient, mais inscrite dans notre tonitruante modernité. « Une vie à l’écart ne semblait excentrique qu’au contrepoint de l’ambition de faire carrière. L’homme de la voie, en Chine et au Japon, était une figure respectable. Se retirer dans les montagnes et vivre de l’air du temps, c’est déjà devenir Immortel. Car quelle est l’option contraire, finalement ? C’est briller dans les salons. C’est la notoriété, le succès, l’adulation, toutes choses vaines pour qui a quelque ambition supérieure. On en connaît les conséquences. »
LITERATURE
LES ANNÉES DISCRÈTES THE DISCREET YEARS
Benjamin Pelletier
Benjamin Pelletier explores childhood in its many territories, from first steps to first words, from the discovery of landscapes - Lozère limestone, Dordogne chasms, Pyrenees mountains, seaside - to meeting with others, from the confrontation with the wolf to the sensuality of the nails of the little girls. ●
The interior space that is emerging awakens our own childhood, intense, secret, and questions what we are.
Publication date : April 2018 296 pages
Benjamin Pelletier was born in 1975. After studying philosophy in Toulouse, a first professional experience in education in Riyadh and then in Seoul, he moved to Paris where he finished writing his first book, La Mère des batailles (l’Olivier, 2004). À travers sables (l’Olivier, 2009) draws on his professional experience in Saudi Arabia, while Toujours plus l'est (Picquier, 2016) tells of a year-long stay in South Korea. ●
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Benjamin Pelletier explore l’enfance dans ses multiples territoires, des premiers pas aux premiers mots, de la découverte des paysages – causses de Lozère, gouffres de Dordogne, montagnes des Pyrénées, bords de mer – à la rencontre avec les autres, de la confrontation avec le loup à la sensualité des nuques des petites filles. L’espace intérieur qui se dessine réveille notre propre enfance, intense, secrète, et interroge ce que nous sommes.
LITERATURE / TRAVEL STORIES
ON NE PEUT PAS TOUJOURS VOYAGER, MAIS ON NE PEUT PAS TOUJOURS RESTER AU MÊME ENDROIT WE CAN’T ALWAYS TRAVEL, BUT WE CAN’T ALWAYS STAY IN ONE PLACE
Élisabeth Foch-Eyssette
Élisabeth Foch-Eyssette has traveled the world in this oscillation proper to each of us that makes us want elsewhere to dream of returning home. ●
Publication date : March 2018 200 pages
Elisabeth Foch-Eyssette was born in 1953 in Lorraine. She lives and writes in Paris, and has traveled the world for a long time. After studying philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris, she was a journalist for Partir, a freelance journalist for various magazines, then an iconographer for Contrejour, before publishing numerous books. Travel and nature have always inspired his work. Through her books, she seeks to account for the alternation of our nomadic and sedentary instincts, and to bring out the resonance between images and words. She is the author of sevral books : Je suis au jardin (Le Passage, 2002), L’Echappée indienne, photos Hugues Costa (Philippe Rey, 2003), Montagnes sacrées (Chêne, 2005), L’Ethiopie, la ferveur et la foi, photos Paola Viesi (Imprimerie Nationale, 2010), Itinéraires en dents de scie (Le Passage, 2015). ●
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In the manner of Sei Shōnagon in The Pillow book, she writes as well things that invite to take off as the meetings of those we do not forget. And gives, with the same happiness, to the momentum of departures and the desire to anchor, to the joys of nomadic life and sedentary life. The intimate territory becomes as exotic as that of the Strait of Magellan where seashells are crushed by the meeting of the oceans, or the night of the Bolivian Altiplano which, seen from a truck trailer, leaves you full of stars in the eyes.
Élisabeth Foch-Eyssette a parcouru le monde dans cette oscillation propre à chacun d’entre nous qui nous fait désirer l’ailleurs pour mieux rêver au retour. À la manière de Sei Shônagon dans Notes de chevet, elle écrit aussi bien les choses qui invitent à prendre le large que les rencontres de ceux qu’on n’oublie pas. Et cède, avec le même bonheur, à l’élan des départs et au désir d’ancrage, aux joies de la vie nomade et de la vie sédentaire. Le territoire intime devient alors aussi exotique que celui du détroit de Magellan où les coquillages sont broyés par la rencontre des Océans, ou que la nuit de l’Altiplano bolivien qui, vue d’une remorque de camion, vous laisse plein d’étoiles dans les yeux.
LITERATURE / ESSAY
DANS LES EAUX PROFONDES. LE BAIN JAPONAIS IN DEEP WATERS. THE JAPANESE BATH
Akira Mizubayashi
The space of the bathroom, space often innocuous, or cramped in Europe, is in Japan a privileged place where the theme of the intimacy family or friendly is manifested better than elsewhere. The Japanese bath is an element of civilization, as well as the tea ceremony, the haikus or the way of the flowers. ●
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Publication date : March 2018 220 pages
Akira Mizubayashi was born in Sakata (Japan) in 1951. After studying at the National University of Foreign Languages and Civilizations of Tokyo (Unalcet), he left for France in 1973 and studied a teacher training at Paul Valéry University in Montpellier (France) to become a teacher of French as a foreign language. He returned to Tokyo in 1976, did a master's degree in modern literature, then, in 1979, returned to France as a student of the École Normale Supérieure in the rue d'Ulm. From 1983 to 2017, he taught French language and literature in Tokyo successively at Meiji University, Unalcet and Sophia University. Akira Mizubayashi lives in Tokyo. He writes in Japanese and French. ●
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If the bath is first associated with the eyes of a Westerner to the idea of cleanliness, it’s in Japan a refined and poetic savoir-vivre, which makes it possible to meet each other in an intimate and benevolent setting. Like Tanizaki, in his In Praises of shadows, Akira Mizubayashi delivers us in this evocation of deep waters, the secret of a Japanese heart but also the critical vigilance of a man of his time in a country in crisis..
Last books by the same author : Une langue venue d’ailleurs, Gallimard, coll. «L’un et l’autre», 2011 ; Folio, 2013 Mélodie, Chronique d’une passion, Gallimard, coll. «L’un et l’autre», 2013 ; Folio, 2014 Petit Éloge de l’errance, Gallimard, Folio 2 euros, 2014 Un amour de Mille-Ans, Gallimard, collection « Blanche », 2017
L’espace de la salle de bains, espace souvent anodin, ou exigu en Europe, est au Japon un lieu privilégié où le thème de l’intimité familiale ou amicale se manifeste mieux qu’ailleurs. Le bain japonais est un élément de civilisation, au même titre que la cérémonie de thé, les haïkus ou la voie des fleurs. Si le bain est d’abord associé aux yeux d’un occidental à l’idée de propreté, il est au Japon un savoir-vivre raffiné, poétique, qui rend possible la rencontre de l’autre dans un cadre intime et bienveillant. Comme Tanizaki, dans son Éloge de l’ombre, Akira Mizubayashi nous livre dans cette évocation des eaux profondes, le secret d’un cœur japonais mais aussi la vigilance critique d’un homme de son temps dans un pays en crise.
ARCHITECTURE / INTERVIEW
FUMIHIKO MAKI, ARCHITECTE AU LONG COURS FUMIHIKO MAKI, LONG-TIME ARCHITECT
Fumihiko Maki
This book comes from the meeting between Michel Thiollière, then mayor of Saint-Etienne (France), and Fumihiko Maki. ●
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Publication date : February 2018 192 pages
Winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1993, Fumihiko Maki is one of the great masters of modern architecture, imbued with Japanese culture.
Michel Thiollière
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Winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1993, Fumihiko Maki is one of the great masters of modern architecture, imbued with Japanese culture. Respectful of space, he is sensitive to the social appropriation of places. Among his latest works: WTC 4, one of Ground Zero's towers in New York. Michel Thiollière, through a conversation, we discover a key player in architecture and urban planning of the last sixty years, who has rubbed shoulders and admired both Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Kenzo Tange, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius as Frank Lloyd Wright.
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Ce livre est issu de la rencontre de Michel Thiollière, alors maire de Saint-Étienne, et de Fumihiko Maki. Lauréat du prix Pritzker en 1993, Fumihiko Maki est un des grands maîtres d’une architecture moderne, imprégnée de culture japonaise. Respectueux de l’espace, il est sensible à l’appropriation sociale des lieux. Parmi ses dernières oeuvres : WTC 4, une des tours de Ground Zero à New York. Michel Thiollière, par le biais d’une conversation, nous fait découvrir un acteur essentiel de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme des soixante dernières années, qui a côtoyé et admiré aussi bien Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Kenzō Tange, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius que Frank Lloyd Wright.
Michel Thiollière was Mayor of SaintEtienne (1994-2008) and initiated the creation of the City of Design, entrusted with project sby Fumihiko Maki, Norman Foster, Finn Geipel, Manuelle Gautrand, Rudy Ricciotti, Jean-Michel Wilmotte,...
LITERATURE / ESSAY
FRATERNELLE MÉLANCOLIE FRATERNAL MELANCHOLY
Stéphane Lambert
On August 5, 1850, while working on his whale book, Herman Melville met Nathaniel Hawthorne, propelled to the rank of greatest American writer after the publication of The Scarlet Letter. Between the two men is born a literary friendship with passionate accents. A few months later, Melville dedicates Moby Dick to his new friend. The evidence of their meeting is as dazzling as the end of their story.
Publication date : January 2018 224 pages
Born in 1974 in Brussels, Stéphane Lambert is a novelist, poet, essayist. His literary work is marked by a desire to go beyond the classification of genres and forms, a concern that has brought him closer to the visual arts and to be interested, from the inside, in the process of creation. Alongside his books, he has written radio drama for France Culture, and co-wrote with the director Claude Régy the book Dans le désordre (Actes Sud, 2011 - prize for the best book on theater). He won the Roland Jouvenel Prize 2017 (French Academy Prize) for his book Avant Godot. http://www.stephanelambert.com ●
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To this complex relationship of two beings that a melancholy background brings together and opposing temperaments separate, Stéphane Lambert interweaves elements of personal and romantic life, and questions about creation, fraternity or desire. Writing then becomes another way of loving.
Le 5 août 1850, alors qu’il travaillait à son livre sur la baleine, Herman Melville rencontre Nathaniel Hawthorne, propulsé au rang de plus grand écrivain américain après la publication de La Lettre écarlate. Entre les deux hommes naît une amitié littéraire aux accents passionnels. Quelques mois plus tard, Melville dédie Moby Dick à son nouvel ami. L’évidence de leur rencontre est aussi fulgurante que le sera la fin de leur histoire. À cette relation complexe de deux êtres qu’un même fond de mélancolie rapproche et que des tempéraments opposés séparent, Stéphane Lambert entrelace des éléments de vie personnels et romanesques, et des interrogations sur la création, la fraternité ou le désir.Écrire devient alors une autre manière d’aimer.
LITERATURE / TESTIMONY
GAUCHÈRE LEFT-HANDED
Hélène Millerand
According to some psychoanalysts, everything is played before five years. Hélène Millerand widens the scope of her founding years until the age of twenty. Thanks to reading, her parents' garden, her interest in Paris Match covers and some beautiful encounters, she recounts, with a smile on her face, how, the last of a family of four sisters hard-hit by the war, shemade herself a very acceptable existence, which was not won in advance.
Publication date : January 2018 136 pages
Hélène Millerand was for twenty-three years in charge of the aid to theatrical companies at the mayor of Paris. Two of her books has been published by Seuil, Carnets d'un coquette raisonnable (1998) and Renonce avec grâce à ta jeunesse (2002), and three novels by Stock: Vieille France (2004), Modern solitude (2006), Quartier du Temple (2009). She is the granddaughter of Alexandre Millerand, President of the French Republic from 1920 to 1924. ●
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Selon certains psychanalystes, tout se joue avant cinq ans. Hélène Millerand élargit le champ de ses années fondatrices jusqu’à l’âge de vingt ans. Grâce à la lecture, au jardin de ses parents, à son intérêt pour les couvertures de Paris Match et à quelques belles rencontres, elle raconte, sourire aux lèvres, comment, dernière d’une famille de quatre sœurs durement éprouvée par la guerre, elle s’est bricolé une existence très acceptable, ce qui n’était pas gagné d’avance.
BACKLIST ●
CIEL D’ACIER, Michel Moutot
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Rights sold : Germany (S. Fischer Verlag)
Rights sold : Spain (Penguin Random House /Grijalbo) (pocket rights sold in France to : Points - Seuil )
Historian of photography, Elisabeth Bathori stumbles upon the letters and photo album of Alban de Willecot, a lieutenant who died at the front in 1917. Taking interest in him, she sets out in search of Diane, whose Alban was madly in love, and scrutinizes each of the photographs taken in the forehead, guessing behind these smiling faces a real tragedy.
New York, September 11, 2001: As the Twin Towers collapse, John LaLiberté, aka Cat, a Mohawk Indian and steel erector, works on the construction site of a new building in Manhattan. He joins the scene of the disaster, called in support as all his colleagues, to try to save hypothetical survivors. Prix des lecteurs Points-Seuil 2016. Prix Gironde 2015. First novel. LITERATURE / FICTION ●
L’ANNÉE PROCHAINE À NEW YORK. DYLAN AVANT DYLAN, Antoine Billot The author's passion for Bob Dylan led him to retrace the history of the Jewish families Greenstein, Solemovitz and Zimmerman (the singer is one of his descendants). From the Ukrainian pogroms to their installation in the Mesabi Range, it is the history of uprooting and wandering, but also a literary, cinematographic and musical panorama of a plural America that are evoked. LITERATURE / NARRATIVE NON-FICTION
L’ODEUR DE LA FORÊT, Hélène Gestern
LITERATURE / FICTION ●
UNE TRACE DANS LE CIEL, Agnès Clancier Arrested by the Gestapo in March 1944, a famous aviator remembers, from the bottom of her cell, her childhood, her moments of happiness, her loves, her passion for piloting and accomplished exploits. A story inspired by the life of Maryse Bastié. LITERATURE / FICTION
BACKLIST ●
AVANT GODOT, Stéphane Lambert
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In 1937, in Dresden, Samuel Beckett discovered Caspar David Friedrich's painting Two men contemplating the moon, which he later confided inspired the play En attendant Godot. This book explores the relationship between the two artists and how one creator reveals himself through another.
(pocket rights sold in France to : Folio – Gallimard ) In the Stockholm of the late nineteenth century, the ambiguous relationship between Léonard Sézeneau, French merchant, his wife, Hulda, and Livia, the strange Swedish governess engaged to assist the young woman in the education of their four children.
Prix Roland de Jouvenel 2017 (Académie française)
LITERATURE / FICTION
LITERATURE / ESSAY ●
LES BIJOUX DE PACOTILLE, Céline Milliat Baumgartner News : adapt to theater in France by the author herself (also actress). The author will tour with his play throughout France in 2018. Great success and very enthusiast press review here) On June 19, 1985, a car leaves the road at the entrance of the tunnel of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (suburbs of Paris) and catches fire. Two charred bodies are extracted, everything burned except a flower-shaped earring and two metal bracelets. Two children learn that they are orphaned by both parents on the same day. First novel.
LA GOUVERNANTE SUÉDOISE, Marie Sizun
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DANS UN TEMPLE ZEN, Sébastien Ortiz At the age of 20, following a disappointment in love, the narrator leaves for Taiwan. Without purpose, he is finally welcomed into a Zen temple in the north of the island. He discovers the lives of Buddhist monks and nuns. The days are punctuated by the study of texts and meditation. He gradually married their existence and became the Master of the drum. This beautiful balance is however broken with a sudden grace. LITERATURE / NARRATIVE NON-FICTION
LITERATURE / NARRATIVE NON-FICTION
