Who is Adrien Bosc?
Adrien Bosc was born in Avignon in 1986. He is the founder of Éditions du Sous-Sol and the magazines Desports and Feuilleton. Last January, he was appointed deputy director of the Editions du Seuil - a major French publishing house. His success as a publisher echoes his success as a writer: Constellation, his first novel, was a literary sensation in France. The book is now available in the United Kingdom thanks to translator Willard Wood and publisher Serpent's Tail!
Here's the plot:
"On 27 October 1949, a Lockheed Constellation passenger plane left Paris for New York. Hours later, it disappeared on approach to its scheduled stopover in the Azores. It was found on a mountainside five miles from its intended landing zone. There were no survivors.Among those lost in the accident were heavyweight boxer Marcel Cerdan flying to New York for a world title fight; 30-year-old virtuoso violinist Ginette Neveu; Kay Kamen, Walt Disney's merchandising tsar; five Basque shepherds emigrating to America; a pilot who ran missions for the Free French during the war.Constellation tells the untold true stories of the forty-eight men and women who died on board, and paints a moving portrait of their place in the changing post-war world and of their hopes and dreams for the life awaiting them across the Atlantic.Adrien Bosc's magnetic debut novel is a memorial to an air disaster that happened half a century ago. But it is also a love song to the forgotten lives that every tragedy scatters around it like so much debris, and a poignant investigation into the nature of collective tragedy."
Originally published by Stock in France in 2014, it was awarded the Grand prix du roman de l'Académie française 2014, the Prix littéraire de la Vocation 2014, the Prix Gironde Nouvelles Écritures 2014, and the Prix Paris Diderot-Esprits libres 2015... And it received an English Pen Award here in the UK.
Do not miss him this summer !
Sat 13 Aug 5:00pm - 6:00pm he will be at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, in discussion with Miriam Moss: 1949 – an Air France flight crashes into a mountain, there are no survivors. Adrien Bosc's Constellation tells the stories of the 48 passengers who died; their hopes, dreams and untold stories. 1970 – Palestinian guerillas hijack a plane, land in the Jordanian desert and issue their demands. Miriam Moss was on that plane and in her new novel, Girl on a Plane, she fictionalises her memory of the events.
>> Book here <<
Sun 14 Aug 5:30pm he will be at the Institut Français in Edinburgh, for an informal and open discussion about his work. Join for free! Booking essential >> Here <<