Hay : of Fest and Scent
The Hay Festival has just begun! From May 26th to June 5th, writers from around the world gather to debate and share stories in the beautiful Welsh Borders. Gwlad Gwlad! The organisers say:
"Hay celebrates great writing from poets and scientists, lyricists and comedians, novelists and environmentalists, and the power of great ideas to transform our way of thinking. We believe the exchange of views and meeting of minds that our festivals create inspire revelations personal, political and educational. Hay is, in Bill Clinton's phrase, 'The Woodstock of the mind'. Hay Festival was founded around a kitchen table in 1987 and continues to attract the most exciting writers, filmmakers, comedians, politicians and musicians to inspire, delight and entertain. For 10 days in May, Hay is full of stories, ideas, laughter and music."
If you can't make it to Hay-on-Wye this week-end, it's alright. You may as well travel without moving from your chair, thanks to Philippe Claudel's refreshing "catalogue of remembered smells", entitled Parfums. Originally published by French publisher Stock in 2012, it has been translated into English by Euan Cameron and published by MacLehose Press in 2014. The publisher's blurb cannot leave you unmoved:
From the sizzling sharpness of freshly cut garlic to the cool tang of a father's aftershave; the heady intoxication of a fumbled first kiss to the anodyne void of disinfectant and death, this is a decadently original olfactory memoir. In sixty-three elusive episodes we roam freely across the countryside of Lorraine, North-East France, from kitchen to farm to a lover's bed. Recognising the bittersweet nostalgia of a scent that slips away on the summer breeze, Claudel demonstrates again his impeccable grasp of the personal and the universal, interweaved with a rare, self-deprecating charm. This is an evocative patchwork at once earthy and ethereal, erotic and heart-breaking. Claudel permits us a glimpse of moments that have driven him to delight or despair, creating through the fading aromas of the past fragments of humour, insight and quite intangible beauty.
Seducing, isn't it? Luckily, we have picked an excerpt for you to read. And surprise surprise... it is entitled "Hay".
About the author, Philippe Claudel
Philippe Claudel is a university lecturer, novelist and scriptwriter. He has written 14 novels that have been translated into various languages. He was born in Dombasle-sur-Meurthe in 1962 where he still lives. Claudel says that he woke up one morning with the opening sentence of Brodeck's Report in his head: "My name is Brodeck and I am not responsible.
About the translator, Euan Cameron
Euan Cameron was born in London, brought up in Argentina, and educated in Britain and France. After a long career as a publisher - he worked for the London office of the University Presses of Chicago, Columbia and Yale, Thomas Nelson, Michael Joseph, The Bodley Head, and Barrie & Jenkins - he went on to earn his living as a book reviewer and literary journalist before returning to publishing part-time as an editor at Harvill and Random House. He has translated over twenty-five books from French.
He was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2011. He lives in London.