Laurent Mauvignier

A painter contends with the ghosts of the French countryside in a psychological literary thriller by a major French writer. An eccentric Parisian artist moves to La Bassée, a hamlet in the French countryside, to work on her paintings in peace. The town has only three other inhabitants: Patrice Bergogne, inheritor of his family's farm, his wife, Marion, and their daughter, Ida. When the artist receives an anonymous poison-pen letter in the mail--and then another one, delivered by hand--she wonders who would wish to disturb her and the village's peace. Over the course of the novel, Mauvignier follows these four characters' lives, telescoping from broad landscapes to gauzy recollections, building toward a menacing finish. Written in rhythmic prose that doubles back as it traverses time, The Birthday Party asks whether we can ever escape our past--whether, in its attention to the minutiae of daily life, such a thing as a quiet life exists. As the artist works to exorcise obsessions through her paintings, and her neighbors are revisited by past decisions, we understand that even a place long "destined to languish, a world uniquely fated to narrow," has a history they must contend with. The Birthday Party is the magnum opus by a major French writer.

The Birthday Party

Histoires de la nuit

Victor Hugo

Un homme sans nom dont on ne sait rien, pas même le crime, vient d'être condamné à la guillotine: il ne lui reste plus que quelques jours à vivre. Dans l'attente de son exécution, il consigne ses dernières pensées et sensations: son journal suit le flot chaotique de sa conscience, avec des moments de panique, des sursauts d'espoir ou de révolte, et une hantise - celle de la mort qui vient. Texte d'une inaltérable actualité et premier acte d'un combat dont Hugo demeurera le symbole, Le Dernier jour d'un condamné (1829) se présente comme "la plaidoirie générale et permanente pour tous les accusés présents et à venir ". Et reste sans doute le plus grand réquisitoire jamais écrit contre la peine de mort.

Le dernier jour d'un condamné

Sibylle, à qui la jeunesse promettait un avenir brillant, a vu sa vie se défaire sous ses yeux. Comment en est-elle arrivée là ? Comment a-t-elle pu laisser passer sa vie sans elle ? Si elle pense avoir tout raté jusqu'à aujourd'hui, elle est décidée à empêcher son fils, Samuel, de sombrer sans rien tenter. Elle a ce projet fou de partir plusieurs mois avec lui à cheval dans les montagnes du Kirghizistan, afin de sauver ce fils qu'elle perd chaque jour davantage, et pour retrouver, peut-être, le fil de sa propre histoire.

Continuer

Nick Flynn

"A four part novel about men from a small French town who fought in the Algerian war for independence and the effect the war still has on them 40 years later"--

The Wound

"Rencontrer une fille tatouée au Japon ; sauver la vie d'un homme sur un paquebot en mer du Nord ; nager avec les dauphins aux Bahamas ; faire l'amour à Moscou ; travailler à Dubaï ; chasser les lions en Tanzanie ; s'offrir une escapade amoureuse à Rome ; croiser des pirates dans le Golfe d'Aden ; tenter sa chance au casino en Slovénie ; se perdre dans la jungle de Thaïlande ; faire du stop jusqu'en Floride. Le seul lien entre les personnages est l'événement vers lequel tous les regards convergent en mars 2011 : le tsunami au Japon, feuilleton médiatique donnant à tous le sentiment et l'illusion de partager le même monde. Mais si tout se fond dans la vitesse de cette globalisation où nous sommes enchaînés les uns aux autres, si chacun peut partir très loin, il reste d'abord rivé à lui-même et à ses propres histoires, dans l'anonymat."--Back cover.

roman

Autour du monde

I passanti

May 1985, Jeff and Tonino, two Parisian football fans with serious drinking habits, are on their way to the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus, at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels.So too are Tana and Francesco, newlyweds from Genoa; Gabriel and Virginie, a young Belgian couple with troubles of their own; and Liverpool supporter, Geoff Andrewson, who is travelling with his two thuggish brothers.On the eve and day of the game these four groups of characters converge and cross paths, and as the excitement of the build up gives way to horrific tragedy, their lives and relationships are changed forever.A mesmerising portrait of people attempting to come to terms with a devastating historical event and their role within it, In the Crowd is a hugely compelling and emotive novel.

In the Crowd

"Where is your wound?" asks Jean Genet in the lines Laurent Mauvignier uses as an epigraph to The Wound. By the time we have finished this four-part novel, we realize that for many the wound lies four decades back in "the Events" that people have tried to not talk about ever since: the Algerian War. Chronicling the lives of two cousins--Bernard and Rabut--both in the present and at the time of the Algerian War of Independence in the 1960s, we get a full picture of the lasting effects this event had on the men who were involved. Through the fragments of their stories we see the whole history of the war: its atrocities, its horrors, and its hatreds. Mauvignier shows readers how the Algerian War, always present yet always repressed, has sickened the emotional and moral life of everyone it touched--and France itself, perhaps. The epigraph, like the novel, suggests that wounded men may even become the wound itself.

Laurent Mauvignier

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