Les Arènes / L’Iconoclaste
Rentrée 2014
LES ARÈNES
With around 40 titles a year, some of which being important bestsellers, Les Arènes appears to be one of the most active and noteworthy non-‐fiction independent French publisher. The great variety of themes that we intend to deal with allows us to reach universal subjects, by questioning the world we live in. Every title is chosen with discernment, as we wish to share our knowledge and discoveries with an always growing readership. MEMOIRS – HISTORY – CURRENT AFFAIRS – ESSAYS GRAPHIC NOVELS – HISTORY – ILLUSTRATED BOOKS
L’ICONOCLASTE
The Arenes’ sister publishing house only publishes 10 titles a year, some of which are, nevertheless, amazing bestsellers. The Iconoclaste has, since its creation in 1997, gathered a lovely collection of literary treasures, carefully hand-‐picked by its founder Sophie de Sivry, according to aesthetic standards. Each title is an intimate and touching book, that guides the reader to a serene and positive state of mind. MEMOIRS – POETRY – LITERATURE – MINDFULNESS
SEPTEMBER -‐
Ceux du Nord, Patrick Chauvel – Vietcong Photographers – PHOTOGRAPHY
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Le Siècle des femmes, Marie-‐Pierre Subtil – Women’s Century – PHOTOGRAPHY
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La Scène de ce drame est le monde, Michel Camdessus – The Scene Of This Drama Is The World – HISTORICAL MEMOIRS Et le souffle devient signe, François Cheng (nouvelle édition) – Drawing Inspiration (new edition) – ESSAY Enquête sur mes parents, Jan Krauze – About My Parents – NARRATIVE NON-‐ FICTION
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OCTOBER -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐ -‐
Je ne baisserai plus les yeux, Isabelle Mauer avec Julia Pavlovitch – I Shall Not Look Down Anymore – MEMOIR Comment faut-‐il s’y prendre pour vivre ?, Alain Cugno – How To Reach An Happy Life – ESSAY De l’art du bonheur, Christophe André – The Art Of Happiness (new edition) – MINDFULNESS The New Yorker, L’Humour à l’hôpital, Jean-‐Joup Chiflet – The New Yorker, Hospital Cartoons – HUMOUR Peur Bleue, Jean-‐Marie Ghislain et Valérie Peronnet – Deep fear – NARRATIVE NON-‐FICTION
NOVEMBER
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Les Évaporés du Japon, Lena Mauger et Stéphane Remael – The Vanishing Japanese – ESSAY Le Tigre et le moucheron, Jordan Pouille – The Tiger And The Midge – ESSAY
Ceux du Nord – Vietcong Photographers Patrick Chauvel Publication by August 27th, 2014 160 pages Black and white photographs Key Points • Novel and unique pictures, never published in the Occidental world. • The book brings together 8 major witnesses from the Vietcong side, who used their cameras to fight in their own way. • Every picture is the starting point of an amazing story, of an extraordinary legend.
Vietcong Photographers Patrick Chauvel The Vietnam War seen from the other side / 1955 – 1975
The Vietnam War is one of the most important events of the second half on the 20th century. Even if it ended 40 years ago, the memory of this war that seemed, at the time, endless, is still very present and alive in people’s minds. But why this war more than an other ? If this major conflict is so well known, it is mainly thanks to the multiple photographers who covered the battles and the life between them. However, if we are familiar with the pictures by great american
photographers such as Larry Burrows, Don McCullin, John Griffits or Gilles Caron, whose works were published and made public in several exhibitions, we do not know much about those from the North, the Vietminh photographers, who captured the war in order to deliver quite a different message… As Americans – « Those from the South » – photographed the war in order to make it stop, to show its atrocities, the torments and agony of the soldiers, the american military rout… « Those from the North » used the artistic medium as a propaganda tool, in order to win the war, to lead the ideology to its zenith. This book is a tribute to those pictures and photographs that had never been published in Occident until now.
The Author Patrick Chauvel was 18 years old when he came to Vietnam in 1967 to become a photoreporter. There, he discovered what war was through his profession. From the American side and point of view. After 40 years of photographing wars and conflicts around the world, he has become one of the most important figures of the profession, author of various books, one of which being Rapporteur de guerre (Oh Éditions, 2003) that sold around 50 000 copies.
Le Siècle des femmes – Women’s Century Marie-‐Pierre Subtil August 27th, 2014 360 pages Photographs Key points • A successful subject: strong women, who fight for their rights, who live in their time, who dream of better futures. • Photo-‐journalism excellency : reports told as if they were fictional stories, with very meticulous captions. • Three striking main themes : Women of tomorrow ; Facing challenges ; Extraordinary destinies.
Women’s Century Marie-‐Pierre Subtil The great photo report book about women of the 21st century : 12 photographic stories that were published in the French magazine 6MOIS. Those women come from all around the world, ranging from Russia to Mexico via Qatar. Some of them are young, others are older ; we see some grow up, or we only catch a glimpse of their entire lives. Their stories show their diversity and the world’s cultural wealth : teen-‐ mothers in Naples, Chinese concubines, midwifes in the Yemeni desert… T hey all become, through these pictures, the 21st century heroines.
Women of tomorrow
Those women who fight to make their future brighter, no matter what, bringing obstacles down. Marisol. Bandanti. Concubine for a living. Neapolitan teen mothers.
Extraordinary destinies
They are Qatari, Chinese, Ukrainian or Yemeni, and they build tomorrow’s world. Hessa. The cossack teen girls. Yemeni midwives. Three girls in Beijing.
Facing challenges
The world’s everyday-‐life heroines. Filda. Cécilie and Victoria. The Versailles queen. The mercy-‐giver.
La Scène de ce drame est le monde – The Scene Of This Drama Is The World Michel Camdessus Publication by September 10th, 2014 500 pages English excerpts available. Key Points • From the end of communism to a financial globalization. • A unique document about History’s backstages. • This world’s most powerful men and women’s humanity revealed. • A very notorious author.
The Scene Of This Drama Is The World Michel Camdessus Michel Camdessus was head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for over 12 years.
One of the most powerful men in the World Michel Camdessus is a m ajor witness : as the 20th century last twenty years saw capitalism’s triumph over communism and Thatcher and Reagans’s liberal revolution, Michel Camdessus was in the middle of the action, as close as possible to the world’s most influential Heads of States. After each and every crucial and eminent meeting, he would take notes of the conversations, the things he saw and heard, the most striking sparring matches. This book is a collection of these summits that happened during historic climaxes.
Some memorable chapters
Nelson Mandela who, as he just got out of prison, was ready to play with the IMF against his party, the ANC. Jean-‐Paul II, visionary before the fall of the Berlin Wall and Polish above all after 1991. Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, studying economy by night, to be able to understand capitalism. The IMF President, disguised as a tourist in order to remain incognito in Buenos Aires, where he is to negociate with the government. African Heads of States gathered behind closed doors, in order to devalue the CFA franc of 50%, and change more than a hundred millions of African’s lives. Bill Clinton monologuizing in his limousine about the weather, poverty, the financial crisis.
The Author
Michel Camdessus, 80 years old, was Director of the Treasury under Jacques Delors, director of the Banque de France under François Mitterrand and Head of the International Monetary Fund from 1987 to 2000. Even if he is originally left-‐winged, he is a fervent militant of financial orthodoxy. As a Christian, Michel Camdessus is also close to the Vatican.
Et le souffle devient signe – Drawing Inspiration François Cheng From the Académie Française Publication by September 17th, 2014 128 pages Black and white illustrations Key Points • A bestseller author. • An intimate and poetic text about accessing and understanding the inner Self. • Fabulous calligraphic works by the author himself. • The unexpected encounter of graphic arts, literature, poetry and philosophy.
Drawing Inspiration
François Cheng François Cheng’s most intimate book : a selfportrait made of ink and meditation. New edition. A unique text in François Cheng’s work : the previously unpublished calligraphies of the author, alongside with his personal interpretation and verses from Chinese poetry, are a magnificent introduction to this intimate art, and to François Cheng’s subtelty. An introduction to the importance of calligraphy in Chinese art, poetry and philosophy. Every sign has symbolic meanings, according to the calligrapher’s mood or state of mind, depending on the energy that was put in the act of drawing. We learn how the author manages to reach a high state of meditation through calligraphy, as this artistic practice involves the body as well as both the mind and the spirit.
The Author
François Cheng was born and raised in China, and arrived in France in 1948, barely knowing French. Over 60 years later, he is now an undisputed and admired French novelist and poet, honoured by an election at the Académie Française in 2002. His academic works mainly consist of translations of Chinese poets into French and vice versa. Also, he received several literary prizes as a novelist.
Enquête sur mes parents – About My Parents Jan Krauze Publication by September, 24th 2014 200 pages Key points • An inquiry about origins and heroism. • A subtle and absorbing writing style, making this text a memorable narration. • A text illustrated by personal pictures of the Occupation. • History through the multiple stories that made it.
About my parents
Jan Krauze
Tell without misrepresenting
Some people have, despite appearances, extraordinary destinies. This is the case of Jan Krauze’s parents, who were transformed by the war tragedy from a young and ordinary couple to anonymous heroes. She came from the French region of Anjou, exiled in London before the war in order to hide the secret of her birth. He was Polish, born in a small mining town of the Russian Empire. After his country’s defeat, he got to France in order to continue fighting for the cause. They met and loved each other at hardly 30 years old. They both joined the important resistance network F2 from 1941, as only few thousands of objectors dared to rebel against the German occupying forces and the Vichy regime. They were heroes in spite of themselves, escaping, many times by miracle, from being arrested. In 1945, they ended their heroic lives in order to become an ordinary couple and family, to live a simple and lovely life, after having been so extraordinary together.
Jan Krauze’s quest moves step by step through History, following memories, decrypting archives, decoding photographs, interviewing family, going back as far as possible. « I tried to reconstruct their story, using an inextricable mess of childhood anecdotes, later informations, and most of all, questions that I still ask to myself today... » This is History told from the people who lived it’s point of view. With his book, Jan Krauze manages to teach us about one of the most well known moments in History through a very personal and intimate perspective. This narration’s strength partakes of its modesty and unanswered questions, of its collection of details that epitomizes two lives and the inheritance they left us.
The Author
Jan Krauze is an international reporter. He used to be a correspondent in Warsaw, Moscow and Washington for the French newspaper Le Monde. He is the author, among others, of Le Monde, les grands reporters (Les Arènes, 55 000 copies sold) and adapted Ryszard Kapuściński’s biography’s translation (Les Arènes, 2011). He regularly contributes to the 6MOIS magazine.
Je ne baisserai plus les yeux – I Shall Not Look Down Anymore Isabelle Maurer with Julia Pavlovitch Publication by October 1st, 2014 256 pages Key Points • An anonymous woman who became famous. • When precariousness and generosity finally meet. • Isabelle Maurer’s outspokenness sharply contrasts with politicians’ double-‐ speak.
I Shall Not Look Down Anymore Isabelle Maurer
with Julia Pavlovitch She hasn’t a penny for herself, and still, she tirelessly fights for charity, putting her heart and soul into improving the lives of others. She stood up to Jean-‐ François Copé, head of the French party UMP. An optimistic testimony that tells us about generosity and solidarity.
The unemployed woman who brought Jean-‐François Copé down Invited at a debate with Jean-‐François Copé on the France 2 channel, Isabelle Maurer marked the spirits with her bravery and s incerity. This single mother has to survive with € 470 a month, and she has decided to testify : the little people’s dignity, the employment agencies’ ineffectualness, France’s deindustrialization…
A big hearted woman
However, beyond this anger and fury, Isabelle Maurer is i mmeasurably generous, always willing to help others, sometimes even forgetting she needs
help too. In this book, she tells her hyperactive everyday life, her multiple associative commitments, all the charities she has involved herself into. Isabelle is one of thoses unknown persons who fight the crisis with solidarity. « If even the social link disappears, then all will be lost »
The author Isabelle Maurer’s life was never easy. Elder daughter of a family of seven children, she is placed in a social care home when her father dies. She then works in a German chocolate factory, undergoes her first restructuring plan at Quelle, becomes a cashier, and finally benefits from social care. Later, she holds a restaurant with her husband, who is a cook. Divorced, she raises her three children by herself. Today, it is the sadness to see that her children, despite their diplomas, start their lives with precarious jobs, without any future perspective. However, Isabelle never lowers her arms, refusing to accept despair. And this is her amazingly noble lesson to everyone around her : there will always be place for hope, as long as we keep helping each others in our own ways.
Comment faut-‐il s’y prendre pour vivre – How To Reach An Happy Life Alain Cugno Publication by October 8th, 2014 200 pages Key points • A philosophic jewel, within the reach of everyone. • The discovery of daily happiness, as part of simple life events. • An everyday wisdom.
How To Reach An Happy Life Alain Cugno How should we lead our lives ? Taken by the everyday life, we tend to forget this essential question. « By the time we learn to live it's already too late » as the poet Louis Aragon wrote… The philosopher Alain Cugno confronts himself to this question in this book that takes stock of his life. All his life, Alain Cugno has met men and women who taught him how to lead an authentic and peaceful life. Men and women who give the world its meaning, and initiate us to question our own choices. Those persons are, to Alain Cugno, real-‐life angels.
It takes the author 14 steps to reveal his – their – secrets : keep joy in mind, be in love with life, face death by turning our back on it, see the others as they are, claim who we are, always be gourmand, sensual and lazy, cultivate only what is essential, understand that love means setting the other free… Neither wise men or heroes, but profoundly human, those angels embody an authentic way of life, which this book shows to be accessible to all.
The Author
Alain Cugno is a writer, and teaches philosophy at the Centre Sèvres, in Paris. He wrote many books that were published by Le Seuil, and was also author of titles about criminal justice and the prison world (he is editor-‐in-‐ chief of the magazine Prison et justice (« Prison And Justice »)). Passionate about ornithology, he is a great amateur of dragonflies and wrote, in 2011, La Libellule et le philosophe (« The Dragonfly And The Philosopher ») (L’Iconoclaste ; Albin Michel, coll. Poche, 2014).
De l’art du bonheur – The Art Of Happiness Christophe André New edition Publication by October 8th, 2014 215 pages English excerpts available. Rights sold to the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Taiwan, China, Korea, and Turkey. Key Points • 25 lessons to learn how to live happily. • A collection of masterpieces from all times and painters.
The Art Of Happiness Christophe André
The Author
25 lessons to learn how to live happily. New edition. Art and happiness. Once again, Christophe André offers us an intense guide to happiness and better-‐living, by analyzing 25 pictures of the greatest artists’ through history. From Giotto to Klimt, from Rembrandt to Watteau, he journeys through the different stages and facets of happiness and life, teaching the reader how to feel felicity in adversity as well as in doubt or delight.
Christophe André is a psychiatrist at the Sainte Anne Hospital in Paris, specialized in the psychology of emotions. His books have already conquered many readers. Among his numerous works, we can cite Imparfaits (Odile Jacob, 2006) who won the 2006 Psychologies Magazine price for "the essay that helps to live a better life", Les États d’âme (Odile Jacob, 2009) and Méditer jour après jour (L’Iconoclaste, 2011).
Quotes
« Leave this book on the living-‐room table and glance through it from time to time and... let Happiness in ! » E lle « A subtle assemblage of words and colours that forms an amazing set glorifying happiness. » L e Quotidien du Médecin « An hymn to life both intimate and universal at the same time. » Psychologies magazine « Beauty as a remedy to our pains. » Ouest France
The New Yorker : L’Humour à l’hôpital – The New Yorker : Hospital Cartoons
Jean-‐Loup Chiflet Publication by October 15th, 2014 192 pages Black and white cartoons Key Points • The world’s best cartoons carefully selected for a non-‐american audience. • Always subtle, sometimes absurd, never uncalled-‐for, The New Yorker’s black humour manages to treat any subject with great detachment.
The New Yorker : Hospital Cartoons Jean-‐Loup Chiflet
300 previously unpublished cartoons about the doctors, the sick, the nurses, the psychiatrists… To be enjoyed, without any prescription !
Either it’s not the right file or… Well, let’s just hope it’s not the right file.
And now, the same operation but this time, with successs !
Do you want to hear something funny ? The New Yorker cartoonists pin the medical world with mockery. From maternity hospitals to paliatifs care via house calls, waiting rooms, operating blocks or medical expenses… In this book, we meet, with great amusement, little and big doctors, specialists (dentists, psychiatrists, ophtalmologists…) and the amazing and indispensable nurses. T his book is a concentrate of joie de vivre, a cure of cheerfulness, thumbing its nose to illness.
Peur Bleue – Deep fear Jean-‐Marie Ghislain
Publication by October 15th, 2014 150 pages Key Points • The outstanding testimony of a modern times adventurer. • The story of a passionate man, who never let his life difficulties take him down. • A book about the search for happiness and meaning of life. • An amazing journey around the world.
Deep Fear Jean-‐Marie Ghislain The outstanding testimony of a modern times adventurer. Jean-‐Marie Ghislain has led the most surprising kind of life. From his childhood in a small Belgian town named Chimay, brought up by a very religious mother and a violent father who had love affairs all across the county, to the late discovery of his life goal, many years have passed, marked by endless experiences, all of them being mostly unusual. The search for a meaning of life is never easy. Jean-‐Marie Ghislain is the living proof of such a universal truth. In his book Peur bleue, the adventurer describes an incredible and amazing life path. Indeed, Jean-‐Marie Ghislain has alternately been a windsurfing champion, a phone book salesman in Mexico, a business man… It took him 50 years to discover his passion, beating his strongest and most buried fear : the fear of water, depths and sharks. Jean-‐Marie Ghislain is now a successful shark photographer, criss-‐ crossing the worlds’s oceans and seas in order to meet those impressive predators. However, these usually dreadful animals become, through Ghislain’s words, story-‐telling and pictures, majestic creatures that ought to be understood, respected and admired.
This is the extraordinary story of a man and his quest for happiness. It is the story of the encounter between man and nature, the story of a man reaching manhood.
The Author
Jean-‐Marie Ghislain was born in Belgium in 1955. He was very soon fascinated by light and studies photography at the Institut Saint Luc in Liège. He now travels all around the world to be loser to sharks and take unique pictures of them.
Les Évaporés du Japon – The Vanishing Japanese Léna Mauger and Stéphane Remael Publication by November 5th, 2014 Photographs by Stéphane Remael Key Points • A journalistic investigation about a unique and breathtaking phenomenon. • Vanished men and women talk about their experience for the first time. • The texts are enriched with 35 photographs revealing the settings in which the several stories take place, as well as their main characters.
The Vanishing Japanese Léna Mauger and Stéphane Remael
Japan’s upside
Every year, over 100.000 Japanese stage their own disappearing.
A better life, somewhere else ? Who has never dreamt of abandonning their current life to start a new one, somewhere else ? In Japan, such a decision is frequently made : every year, about 100.000 men, women, whole families vanish without a trace. Debts, loss of their job, adultery, harrassment, ill-‐being… The reasons are numerous and, most of the time, tragic. Freed from their past, they will try to live elsewhere as a brand new person. However, they most of the time lead a miserable, marginalized existence. By running from their past, they condemn themselves to bannishment, and leave their families with no possible recourse. A feodal tradition that, just like suicide, haunts the Japanese culture.
A woman left her child and husband to flee from an impossible love. A laid-‐off employee lied to his loved ones and finally left, one morning, to never come back. A couple of restaurant owners in debt ran away during a stormy night. A former banker went away before falling at the lowest and founding an agency that helps others to secretly vanish. These stories tell us the Japanese alternatives when having to face difficulties : death or self-‐effacement. This is the first time that these missing persons confess their decline.
The Authors Léna Mauger is a journalist at XXI and 6MOIS, and has already published a first story about the Vanishing Japanese in the XXI magazine. Stéphane Remael is a freelance photographer for the French and international press. His photo reports favor both humanity and a dense, film-‐ like light.
Le Tigre et le moucheron – The Tiger And The Midge Jordan Pouille
Publication by November 13th, 2014 240 pages English excerpts available. Key Points • Portraits of unruly Chinese men and women. • The journalist’s liberty of speach in a country where the press and social networks are constantly watched and censored. • The book is enriched by pictures from photo-‐reports and a clarifying cartography that illustrate some of the stories.
wants the rest of the world believe it is. They are the midges disturbing the tiger, the Davids confronting an almighty Goliath.
The Tiger And The Midge Jordan Pouille Portraits of unruly Chinese men and women. In modern China’s shadow, a whole population of outcasts suffers from the galloping urbanisation and a frightening pollution. However, they are determined to stand up and resist. The French reporter Jordan Pouille has traveled up and down China to meet those despised Chinese men and women who are the living proofs of the Middle Kingdom’s failure.
A corpse angler on the Yellow River, the chief from a village stricken by extreme industrial pollution, hundreds of thousands of the Apple factories workers, « rats » employees living underground in Beijing, a catholic woman-‐priest, a supernumerary child deprived of her rights, a clandestine priest… Those are the book’s heroes, to whom Jordan Pouille managed to give a voice, a legitimacy.
The Author
The Chinese economic expansion shows us impressive pictures : colossal industrial and urbanization projects, feverish consumption, gilded youth, increasing middle class… The powerful Chinese tiger seems to have an insatiable appetite for progress. However, behind this glimmering façade hides another reality, far less attractive and shining. The Tiger And The Midge tells us the story of those we forget, of the hidden people because they represent China’s dark side, because their actions tend to fight a system that is not perfect as it
Jordan Pouille, 33, French journalist, has opened an office for the newspaper La Vie in Beijing in 2008, right after the Olympic Games. He also works for Médiapart, Le Soir and Le Temps. He was finalist for the Albert-‐Londres Price in 2014.
