Happy Bookshop Day!
Today is Bookshop Day! To celebrate the first edition of this special event organised by the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland, we have asked four booksellers about their favourite Francophone titles. We share with you their inspiring selection.
Susie Nicklin, from Dulwich Book, tells us: “My two titles are both enquiries: Brodeck’s Report by Philippe Claudel and The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud.”
Brodeck’s Report, which won the prix Goncourt des Lycéens and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, is a dark fable-like narrative investigation report about the murder of a mysterious man in an indefinite country just after the war. Just as this excellent novel, The Meursault Investigation, which echoes The Outsider by Albert Camus and won the prix Goncourt du Premier roman, deals with identity and legacies that determine the present.
Julie Longuemare, from Foyles, has selected Sorrow of the Earth, the first of Éric Vuillard’s books to be translated into English: “This novel tells the story of the Wild Wide West show in which cowboys and Indians were playing their own role. The history was falsified and Buffalo Bill invented himself a hero, but this text of a nostalgic and poetic beauty takes us on a journey where all characters become endearing.”
Her second favourite is Mend the Living, by Maylis de Kerangal: “Simon, aged 17, loses his life in a tragic car crash after a surfing session. This is the story of a heart transplant, the journey from a life to another. I really enjoyed this book because everything is poignant and poetic.”
Her colleague, Gary Perry, recommends (as well as Julie) Constellation by Adrien Bosc: “When Air France's Constellation crashed in 1949 it claimed the lives of all thirty-eights passengers including acclaimed violonist Ginette Neveu and famous Algerian boxer Marcel Cedan, lover of Edith Piaf. A memorial to both the lives lost and the individuals affected by the disaster. Bosc's debut blends fact and fiction to create a moving testament to the connections and coincidences that binds us together.”
And last but not least, Tom, from Broadway Bookshop, invites us to (re)discover Hôtel Splendid, written in the late 1980’s: “Marie Redonnet's 1986 novel is the first in a loose trilogy of books (Forever Valley; Rose, Mellie Rose) that exert a force one can only describe as subterranean. Something happens to the reader, certainly, but what that might be is a mystery. Written in language so elemental it seems to have issued from the swamp that threatens to consume the eponymous hotel, the book's narrator, charged with the decaying 'Hotel Splendid' that is her inheritance and care of her two deteriorating sisters, is pitched in a struggle against indifferent and ill-defined powers. It is her stoic refusal to submit that stands in stark relief to the mud.”
The books:
Philippe Claudel, Brodeck’s Report, translated by John Cullen, Quercus, 2010. Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation, translated by John Cullen, Oneworld Publications, 2015. Éric Vuillard, Sorrow of the Earth. Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business, translated by Ann Jefferson, Pushkin Press, 2016. Maylis de Kerangal, Mend the Living, translated by Jessica Moore, MacLehose Press, 2016. Adrien Bosc, Constellation, translated by Willard Wood, Other Press, 2016. Marie Redonnet, Hôtel Splendid, translated by Jordan Stump, Nebraska Press, 1994.
Many thanks to:
Susie Nicklin, from Dulwich Books, 6 Croaxted Road, West Dulwich, SE21 8SQ. Julie Longuemare and Gary Perry, from Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Road, WC2H ODT. Tom, from Broadway Bookshop, 6 Broadway Market, E8 4QJ.
Bonne lecture and happy Bookshop Day!