Discover En tête-à-tête with French Lit—or, our virtual French Corner—where you will find interviews with French-speaking authors hosted at the Co-op as a part of En tête-à-tête series, launched in partnership with the University of Chicago Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and supported by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Chicago. You'll also encounter thematic selections and recommendations for foreign books in translation as well as hand-picked selections of untranslated books from our staff.
Our friends at AlLBERTINE are hosting their annual Albertine Prize. The Albertine Prize, presented by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and supported by Van Cleef & Arpels, recognizes American readers’ favorite work of contemporary Francophone fiction that has been translated into English and published in the US within the preceding calendar year. Vote here for your favorite of the five finalists, and be entered to win a set of all five nominated titles in English!
The nominated...
2019's literary-award season in France brought us a wide array of books on subjects, from a prisoner's reflections to the Tibetan plateau, from a teenage fascination to an alternate history of transatlantic invasion. We invite you to discover our picks here, and on the shelves of the Co-op.
Vernon Subutex 1, Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne)
From our bookseller Stéphanie: Road trip immobile au coeur d’une ville en mutation, Vernon Subutex, ancien disquaire punk rock, nous entraîne avec lui dans son errance parisienne, s’accrochant comme il peut à ce qu’il reste aujourd’hui du Paris des années 80-90. Virginie Despentes dresse avec minutie et relief le portrait d’une société en crise et d’une génération désenchantée en quête de sens. Un premier tome vibrant et acéré, où se succèdent une galerie de voix uniques, difficiles à oublier longtemps après que l’on a refermé le livre.
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We asked Éric Vuillard—Co-op member, novelist, and winner of the 2017 Prix Goncourt—to share some books he's read recently. He sent us his thoughts on three remarkable titles: O.K., Joe! by Louis Guilloux, a novel revisiting a dark episode in the US Army's history in post D-Day France; Sur la scène intérieure by Marcel Cohen, a haunting series of portraits of the family Cohen lost to the Holocaust reconstructed from objects they left behind; and finally, a translation into French of the revered 19th century Italian novel ...
Éric Vuillard, Leïla Slimani, and Gaël Faye, three of this year's nominees for the Albertine Prize, which 'aims to highlight five new works by authors from the many countries where French is spoken,' recently stopped by the Co-op late last year to talk about their honored work and that of others on our blog. Browse the Co-op's display of Awards-finalists in store and online, and vote on Albertine website before April 30th.
Further reading:
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In advance of his conversation with Adèle author Leila Slimani, Moroccan Francophone literary scholar Khalid Lyamlahy shared an expansive list of impactful contemporary Maghrebi literature—in poetry and prose—with the Co-op. Explore the range of titles below, and join us Tuesday, 2/26, 6pm at the Co-op for this installment of ...
Yvan Alagbé browsed the shelves of our French Corner before the event for his new book, Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures.
Yvan recommends reading—or re-reading, in his case—Gargantua by François Rabelais, and delighting into the unparalleled language, humor, and intelligence of this unique Renaissance humanist. Praising the pleasure of re-discovering great lit, Yvan picked up Traveling the Spaceways: Sun Ra, the Astro Black and Other Solar Myths by John Corbett—another unique character, whose visual work and music Yvan recently re-visited.
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All That Is Evident Is Suspect is the first collection in English to offer a life-size picture of the ouvroir de littérature potentielle in its historical and contemporary incarnations, and the first in any language to represent each of its (as of this printing) forty-one members. Combining fiction, poetry, essays and lectures, and never-published internal correspondence—along with the acrobatically constrained writing and complexly structured narratives that have become synonymous with oulipian practice—this volume shows a unique group of thinkers and artists at work and at play, meditating on and subverting the facts of life, love, and the group itself. It offers an unprecedentedly intimate and comprehensive glimpse at the breadth and diversity of...
"Et parfois l'on se retrouve dans les pages des livres." ("And sometimes one ends up in the pages of books.") Should you purchase two Éditions Allia titles—after browsing our French Corner and Shared Perspectives end-cap—you will receive a beautiful illustrated Allia notebook—speckled with quotes from Lichtenberg, Weil, Scutenaire, and more—for FREE. À Tout de suite...
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