Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

France: How bad - or good - was Mitterrand ?

Mitterrand: good or bad French president?

A discussion of Presidential Candidate François Hollande's tortuous backtracking on euthanasia in Libération inspired a right-left mudslinging match by readers that went all the way back to Socialist President François Mitterrand. 

In this exchange, between comptapublic and voterhollande, we see in a nutshell two diametrically opposing views of the legacy of France's Socialist president....

I reproduce it here:

Comptapublic recalls Mitterrand's failures*:

* participation in the Extreme Right,

* role in torture as Minister of Interior and of Justice during the Algerian war,

* support for anti-Gaullists,

* staging of what is thought to be a fake attack,

* sinking of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior (in which a person was killed) in order to continue nuclear bomb tests,

* son (nicknamed "Daddy told me") in prison for shady dealings in Africa,

* second family hidden at taxpayer expense,

*  special table at LIPP ,

* free vacations in Egypt and Morocco,

*his extensive wiretapping,

* major affairs of Elf, Bernard Tapie, Credit Lyonnais, UAP, arms sales to Karachi, war in Tchad,

* the suicide of his prime minister (Beregovoy) and two advisers,

*friendship with Nazi war criminal Bousquet (which continued long after the war),

* his foreign minister Roland Dumas' taste for luxury shoes and for the Whore of the Republic (Dumas' mistress),  etc... 

 

voterhollande responds with Mitterrand's achievements**:

* abolition of the death penalty (France was actually chopping off heads until very recently)

* five weeks paid vacation

* retirement at 60  

*39 hour work week 

* creation of the euro 

* the opening of radios 

* "presse plurielle",

* "la justice libre" (not sure what this refers to),

* "les conquêtes sociales" 

* the fight against racism

 While far from complete (see below), the competing lists give an idea of how differently French people view this immense figure.

The legislating of more benefits for workers--in particular public sector workers--tends to be hailed by the left and condemned by the right.

Was it, for example, really a good idea to make universtiy positions permanent at an extremely young age, before scholars had published important work? (Or was it the beginning of the end of the French university, by cementing into permanent positions an academic cast with jobs for life whether or not they ever performed serious research at all?) 

Did the "fight against racism" actually reduce racism--or simply make it taboo to talk about very real problems in integrating immigrants (which exploded in massive urban riots in 2005).

The exchange of views between left and right rarely if ever delves into details. Usually it remains on a fairly superficial level, invoking creeds.

But perhaps enough time has passed now for that to change?

Intelligent, charming, cultivated, tough, seductive and profoundly manipulative, Mitterrand was, for many, difficult to see clearly during his reign.

Now that he is gone and the comparatively milk-toasty François Hollande competing for his crown, is the distorting power of the two term President's seduction waning and a clearer image of the man, at long last, begining to form?

Where to find a balanced evaluation of the man, his work, his life....?

 

(See Huffpost.fr photos politicians would love to see deleted from the Web)

***

(exchange in the original French)

* comptapublic répond au commentaire de voterhollande

Re: un enfant de coeur à côté de Mitterrand

Fais la même liste pour M......d depuis sa jeunesse à l'extrême droite, la torture en Algérie quand il était ministre de l'intérieur et ministre de la justice, son soutient à l'Algérie française, son soutient aux anti-gaullistes, le faux attentat de l'observatoire, le rainbowwarrior coulé avec mort d'homme !!! pour reprendre les essais nucléaires, son fils en prison pour trafic en Afrique (surnommé "papa m'a dit"), sa seconde famille cachée aux frais du contribuable, les affaire Elf, Tapie,la faillite du Crédit Lyonnais et de l'UAP, la vente d'armes à Karachi qui a entrainé l'attentat, la guerre au Tchad, son premier ministre suicidé !!! ses deux conseillers suicidés dont un à l'Elysée même !!! sa francisque, son amitié avec Bousquet, les chaussures de son ami Roland Dumas, la Putain de la République, sa table réservée chez LIPP , ses vacances gratuites tous les ans en Egypte et au Maroc, la création de la CSG CRDS, son central d'écoutes téléphonique sous l'Elysée, l'invention du délire des 3% de déficit public et de la relance par la consommation à crédit; la fausse affaire des diamants montée contre Giscard, les journalistes traités de "chiens", les coucheries aux rencontres des jeunesses socialistes etc. etc. 

Personne ne peut arriver à la cheville de M....d en matière d'affaires et de coups tordus ! 

 

**voterhollande répond au commentaire de comptapublic

Re: un enfant de coeur à côté de Mitterrand

Aha je vois que la droite réactionnaire raciste et fachiste veut résister jusqu'au bout!!! 
Elle ne veut pas lâcher le pouvoir car elle a peur du jugement du peuple de France. 

Vous ramenez Mitterrand meme si il n'a rien a voir dans cette élection, nous on est fier du président qui: 
Abroge la peine de mort 
Instaure les 5 semaines de congés payes 
La retraite a 60 ans 
La semaine de travail a 39 heures 
La création de l'euro 
Les radios libres 
La presse plurielle 
La justice libre 
Les conquêtes sociales 
La lutte contre le racisme 
.... 

 

 

French bank Société Générale has quietly lost more value than Greece

 EVOLUTION HISTORIQUE DU COURS BOURSIER DE SOCIÉTÉ GÉNÉRALE : (USD)



 Worse than Greece?

Holders of Greek debt are preparing to take a 50%-75% loss on their investment.

Meanwhile shareholders in the French bank Société Générale have seen the value of their stake decline by nearly half in the past year, and over 80% in the past five years (from 139 on May 7, 2007 to 23 today). Unlike Greek debt, that loss is not realized unless shareholders sell, of course. But like Greek debt, it may not have hit bottom yet....

 

How Dangerous is the Franco Belgian Financial Blackhole Named Dexia?

Dexia lost 11.6 BN euros in 2011. How much will it lose in 2012?

Bailed out twice, in 2008 and 2011, Dexia has been kept alive through schemes of astonishing complexity, even by the standards of modern financial engineering and French and Belgian government opacity.

In 2011, it reported a loss of 11.6 BILLION euros.

Yesterday its French Chairman Pierre Mariani told Le Figaro that Dexia had 1500 BILLION EUROS in swaps, without specifying which kind exactly. The message however was clear: though Dexia has managed to reduce its balance sheet to 413 BILLION euros, the undead bank remains so large that its default could unleash systemic risk.

And now, according to Les Echos, Dexia appears to have received authorization from French and Belgian authorities to borrow an additional 17 BILLION euros, with no collatoral.  In the absence of any public discussion, French and Belgian taxpayers are unaware that they have guaranteed loans to bankrupt bank which is still hemoraging red ink. 

Dexia will, according to L'Expansion, be the biggest default in French banking history.

Some commentators speculated that French taxpayer exposure for Dexia may even exceed that for Greece.

Dexia's equity is currently negative and no estimates are available on future losses from legacy assets.

The French and Belgian governments, which are guaranteeing massive uncollatoralized loans, are entering into "complex" discussions with the European Union on its winding down. 

As a lender to French local governments, Dexia has always been a highly political outfit. How it managed to go from sleepy local lender to international disaster area is a story fit for a French Michael Lewis.

Questions abound. Here are a few:

What is the nature of Dexia's assets?

What is the extent of its projected losses?

How much will French taxpayers end up paying?

How will this impact France's finances?

What has been the role of  Dexia's management in this catastrophe?

Why are key officers being rewarded instead of punished? (The former CEO, Pierre Richard, receives 600,000 euros per year in pension benefits. Bruno Deletré is now DG of Crédit Foncier. Others have parachuted into top posts at Crédit Mutuel-Arkéa. Natixis, and CNP.)

If Dexia falls, who falls with it? 

And why is this not front page news with an official, and perhaps criminal, investigation for mismanagement and possible fraud?

These questions appear obvious, especially a few months before a presidential election. And yet not only are they are not being answered--they are, for the most part, not being asked!

Will the French mainstream press demand serious investigation? Or will this remain the realm of bloggers and Mediapart....

(Here is one rare exception: 

“Devant une telle faillite financière, économique, morale, il serait légitime que les Etats demandent au moins des comptes. Le scandale du Crédit lyonnais avait conduit à des enquêtes parlementaires, à des explications publiques, à un procès et des condamnations. Mais sur Dexia, rien.

  L’ancien dirigeant, Pierre Richard, inventeur de cette machine infernale, continue à couler des jours tranquilles comme conseiller de la Banque européenne d’investissement et parfois auprès du gouvernement sur la réforme des collectivités locales. Au titre d’ancien président de Dexia, il touche une retraite-chapeau, qui vient donc en supplément de sa pension normale, de 600.000 euros par an. Une provision de 11 millions a été constituée dans le bilan de Dexia pour assurer son versement.

Les autres anciens dirigeants de la banque bénéficient eux aussi de la totale impunité, reconnue au monde de la finance en général, aux inspecteurs des finances en particulier. Bruno Deletré, ancien responsable des produits structurés chez Dexia, est désormais directeur général du Crédit foncier. Gérard Bayol, ancien directeur général de Dexia Crédit Local, est devenu directeur général délégué en charge du pôle entreprises et institutionnels de Crédit Mutuel-Arkéa. Alain Delouis, ancien directeur Dexia SA, a trouvé refuge chez Natixis comme directeur des ressources humaines. Sans oublier Gilles Benoist, qui a présidé aux débuts de l’aventure de Dexia aux côtés de Pierre Richard, qui dirige maintenant la CNP et aspire à en devenir président. » - from La Faillite de Dexia: un scandale plus grave que le Crédit Lyonnais.)

L'Expansion:  "on est aujourd'hui en droit de se poser la question de savoir pourquoi la banqueroute de la banque franco-belge ne fait pas davantage de bruit. Ni investigation particulière, ni procès en vue, pour peu on croirait qu'il n'y a pas de responsable." 

*** 

 For more information, see:

Dexia, la banque qui a tout raté--sauf les stress tests, par Julie de la Brosse L'Expansion

L'Etat a-t-il fermé les yeux sur les difficultés de Dexia? par Thierry Roge, Reuters, L'Expansion

Démentèlement de Dexia, Qui va payer Quoi? par Thieery Roge, Reuters, L'Expansion

 Comment Dexia a pu perdre autant? par Julie de la Brosse L'Expansion

Paris et Bruxelles autoriseraient Dexia à émettre de la dette par Claude Fouquet, Les Echos

Dexia a creusé une perte de 11,6 millards d'euros par Bertille Bayard, Le Figaro

Une perte monumentale de 11,6 millards d'euros pour Dexia par Bertille Bayard, Le Figaro

Dexia's 11.6 billion euro loss in breakup wipes out equity by John Martens, Business Week

How did Europe's bank stress tests give Dexia a clean bill of Health, The Guardian

Dexia faces 1 Billion Euro Loss On Sale of Municipal Agency, by John Martens, Bloomberg

La Faillite de Dexia: un scandale plus grave que le Crédit Lyonnais.)

 

Paris Writers Workshop June 24-29, 2012 Now Open for Early Bird Registration

After a year hiatus, WICE's excellent and long running (22 years!) Paris Writers' Workshop is back!

The 2012 edition will take place from June 24–29, 2012.

The Early Bird registration deadline (reduced price) is March 31. After that regular fees apply.

 The Paris Writers Workshop offers a creative week of practical guidance and inspiration, as well as real-world tools for the craft of writing, staying current in publishing trends, getting noticed ... and getting published.

 This year’s writers-in-residence faculty are:

Samantha Chang (Novel)

Kate McMullan (Writing for Children/Young Adults)

Mimi Schwartz (Creative Nonfiction)

Kathleen Spivack (Poetry)

Christopher Tilghman (Short Story)

( Click here for more information on faculty and presenters.)

The Paris Writers Workshop features:

• Morning small-group workshops with the writer-in-residence of your choice, depending on your genre. You'll work with this writer/group every morning, with discussions, writing exercises, and review/critique of your work in progress. 

• Private consultations with writing coaches and literary agents (sign up early, as these book up fast). 

• Networking opportunities all week ... with receptions and readings

• Afternoon panels and workshops for the entire workshop community, focused on the tools of writing and paths to publishing (tools of the trade—a panel with our writers-in-residence, a step-by-step workshop to getting published, plot structure, eBooks, self-publishing, blogging/social media, creative nonfiction, and the role of the agent).

Afternoon presenters include: Lorella Belli, Jami Bernard, Samantha Chang, Stephen Clarke, Sion Dayson, Mary Duncan, Gretel Furner, Terrance Gelenter, Adrian Leeds, Alexander Lobrano, Kate McMullan, Paul Schmidtberger, Mimi Schwartz, Kathleen Spivack, Christopher Tilghman, and Thirza Vallois. These presentations are free for workshop attendees and are also open to the public for a fee. For more information, click here.

The workshop will be held this year at the American University of Paris (centrally located in the 7th arrondissement).

 Find out more at www.pariswritersworkshop.org or email [email protected]. The special discounted early bird rate is available until March 31. Workshops traditionally fill up quickly. 

 

How Amazon Kindle facilitates the transmission of ideas (in English)

This house believes that bringing the finest in literary and intellectual expression to the masses is a good thing to be celebrated, not vilified.

 Greater availability and lower prices for the best books published in the English language in 2011. Can this be a bad thing?

*

Scrounging around for my slippers this morning, I stumbled onto an old "Best Books of the Year"  list, from December 10th print edition of The Economist". What a treat! I thought. I love all these books!  But goodness they are expensive. Still, I'd love to buy them. I wonder how much they are now?...

And that led to this comparison. Original print price to Kindle. And it, I'm afraid, is devastatingly clear.

At the time of publication, the prices ranged from high ($20) to very high ($40). By now, February 2012, some of the prices have perhaps come down, but many are no longer available in your local bookstores. (Or, rather, it is the bookstores themselves that are no longer available.) 

But I own a Kindle.

This means whether sitting in my living room, reading a ratty old copy of The Economist I found under the bed, or traveling anyplace in the world equipped with WIFI, I --or anyone else--can instantly read just about any of the excellent books on this list--at a 30% to 50% cost reduction (or even, borrow for free).

These are not lowest common denominator bestsellers whose enormous print runs make cheap copies viable. On the contrary, the books in this list represent some of the finest thinking and writing humankind produced this year. Think about that. This means that Walmart and Costco (two of the USA's biggest  book retailers) cannot impose their mass market selections on us thanks to economies of scale.

 Take a look, and compare...What do you think?

(We thank The Economist for putting together such an excellent list and hope most sincerely that the author will not mind my sharing it for the purpose of this demonstration...)

Page Turners: Best Books of the Year by The Economist

Politics and current affairs

Exceptional People: How Migration Shaped Our World and Will Define Our Future. By Ian Goldin, Geoffrey Cameron and Meera Balarajan. Princeton University Press; 352 pages; $35 and £24.95
Few things will affect our future more than migration. By calculating the how, where and why of future labour shortages, the authors analyse the costs and benefits of human migration. KINDLE PRICE $19.25

 

Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China. By Jianying Zha. The New Press; 240 pages; $24.95 and £18.99
A highly readable study from a Beijing-born writer for theNew Yorker about China’s “tide players”, the intellectual and entrepreneurial pragmatists who prosper by pushing at the boundaries of what the state permits while taking care never to overstep the mark. KINDLE PRICE $9.99

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. By Jason Stearns.PublicAffairs; 400 pages; $28.99 and £18.99
A serious account of the social and political forces behind one of the most violent clashes of modern times—a 15-year war in Congo that has spilled over into neighbouring countries and claimed as many as 5m lives—by one of its most meticulous and empathetic observers.

Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign. By Sherard Cowper-Coles. Harper Press; 352 pages; £25
A former British ambassador to Afghanistan—and an outspoken early critic of Western policy—breaks out of the static group-think and argues that the current military-led strategy in the country is fatally flawed. NOT AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

The 9/11 Wars. By Jason Burke. Penguin Global; 709 pages; $20. Allen Lane; £30
An ambitious attempt to knit into a coherent whole the sprawling fabric of the “war on terror”. Jason Burke of the Guardian, who has covered Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East through every phase of the conflict, focuses on the ordinary people affected by the troubles rather than on decision-makers in far-off capitals. KINDLE PRICE $12.48

Pakistan: A Hard Country. By Anatol Lieven. PublicAffairs; 558 pages; $35. Allen Lane; £30
A former Times reporter who now teaches at King’s College London, Anatol Lieven has travelled widely through Pakistan talking to generals, shopkeepers, farmers, lawyers and bureaucrats. A book that captures all the drama and colour of this complex Muslim nation. KINDLE PRICE $9.99

Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China’s Extraordinary Rise.By Carl Walter and Fraser Howie. Wiley; 250 pages; $29.95 and £19.99
Two bankers with years of experience in China shine an unprecedented light on the remarkable 32-year effort to build the country’s financial system—on its vices, virtues and many conflicts of interest. KINDLE EDITION $10.99

 

Biography and memoir

Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. By Ezra Vogel. Belknap Press; 928 pages; $39.95
An American former intelligence officer in East Asia examines Deng Xiaoping’s role in transforming impoverished, brutalised China into an economic and political superpower. KINDLE PRICE $23.73

Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961. By Paul Hendrickson. Knopf; 544 pages; $30. To be published in Britain in January by Bodley Head; £20
The author, an accomplished storyteller, interprets myriad tiny details of Ernest Hemingway’s life, and through them says something new about a writer everyone thinks they know.

Blue Nights. By Joan Didion. Knopf; 208 pages; $25. Fourth Estate; £14.99
Even when Joan Didion writes about the hard drama of her own life, particularly the sudden death of her husband followed by the death of her only daughter, her memoirs manage to be larger than her own grief. This is a beautiful book, tragic and profound.

Van Gogh: The Life. By Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. Random House; 953 pages; $40. Profile; £30
An ambitious, original book, by two energetic art-history researchers, which describes the sublime Impressionist as a lonely, syphilitic boozer who bit the hands that fed him.

Charles Dickens: A Life. By Claire Tomalin. Penguin Press; 576 pages; $36. Viking; £30
This is a superb life of Britain’s greatest novelist by its greatest literary biographer.

Ghosts by Daylight: A Memoir of Love, War and Redemption. By Janine di Giovanni. Knopf; 304 pages; $26.95. Bloomsbury; £16.99
A beautifully written memoir, by a Paris-based American war reporter, about the pain of adjusting to normal life after being exposed to the intensity of battle.

The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins her Life’s Work at 72. By Molly Peacock.Bloomsbury; 397 pages; $30 and £20
How Mary Delaney—aristocrat, gardener, woman of fashion and friend to Jonathan Swift and King George III—created the “Flora Delanica”. Less a biography, more an extended prose poem.

 

Economics and business

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. By Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. PublicAffairs; 336 pages; $26.99 and £17.99
An engrossing book by two young economists who draw on some intrepid research and a store of personal anecdotes to illuminate the lives of the 865m people who live on less than $0.99 a day. Winner of the 2011 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs business book of the year award.

The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better. By Tyler Cowen. Dutton Adult; 128 pages; $12.95
A small book full of big ideas about the historic changes wrought through education and innovation. An American economist offers plenty to think about for readers of every ideological stripe.

Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon. By Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. Times Books; 331 pages; $30 and £19.99
Gretchen Morgenson, a veteran New York Times reporter, and Joshua Rosner, a consultant, join up the dots between Congress, special-interest groups, government-sponsored enterprises and Wall Street, including many that other books failed to link, and provide the best account yet of how the American mortgage system went off the rails.

Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World. By William Cohan. Doubleday; 672 pages; $30.50. Allen Lane; £25
A rollercoaster account of how Goldman Sachs does business, and the best analysis yet of its increasingly tangled web of conflicts, by a master-storyteller.

 

 

History

Jerusalem: The Biography. By Simon Sebag Montefiore. Knopf; 638 pages; $35. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; £25
The rich and absorbing story of the only city that exists both on heaven and on Earth, as told through its prophets, poets, peasants, kings and conquerors. After his acclaimed biographies of Stalin, Catherine the Great and her lover, Potemkin, Simon Sebag Montefiore has finally turned to the book he was born to write.

The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean. By David Abulafia. Oxford University Press; 783 pages; $34.95. Allen Lane; £30
How the Mediterranean became a net exporter of economic and cultural might and the thoroughfare between the Atlantic and Asia. The author is an influential Cambridge historian.

The Anatomy of a Moment: Thirty-five Minutes in History and Imagination. By Javier Cercas. Bloomsbury; 403 pages; $18 and £18.99
The most widely read book on the 1981 failed coup in Spain, which was first published in 2009 and has now been translated into English. A persuasive and absorbing work by a Spanish novelist and former academic.

Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth. By Frederick Kempe. Putnam Adult; 608 pages; $29.95
A lively, meticulous account of a crucial year in history, when the third world war nearly started in Berlin.

The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples. By David Gilmour. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 480 pages; $32.50. Allen Lane; £25
On the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unifi8cation some of its countrymen are asking whether the Risorgimento did more harm than good. A richly detailed account of a controversial question by a British historian and biographer.

The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War in the West Indies. By Matthew Parker. Walker & Co; 446 pages; $30. Hutchinson; £25
A tale of wealth, bravery and debauchery—and how the foundations of the modern globalised world were made of sugar—by the author of an excellent earlier work, “Panama Fever”.

 

Science and technology

The Quantum Universe: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen. By Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. Allen Lane; 255 pages; £20. To be published in America in January by Da Capo Press; $25
A book that breaks all the rules of popular science-writing, by two of Britain’s best known physicists.

Thinking, Fast and Slow. By Daniel Kahneman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 512 pages; $30. Allen Lane; £25
The Nobel prize-winning father of behavioural economics and one of the world’s most influential psychologists, Daniel Kahneman shows how we are not at all the paragons of reason that we so often believe ourselves to be.

Global Warming Gridlock: Creating More Effective Strategies for Protecting the Planet. By David Victor. Cambridge University Press; 392 pages; $40 and £25
A sophisticated analysis of the effects of global warming which shows that the current approach to the problem of climate change is a mostly ineffective mess and that alternative approaches will be hard and time-consuming to get up and running—but worth it in the end.

The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans. By Mark Lynas.National Geographic; 280 pages; $25. Fourth Estate; £14.99
A highly readable account of how we came to be living in the Anthropocene age and what we can do about it.

The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. By James Gleick. Pantheon; 544 pages; $29.95. Fourth Estate; £25
A sprawling yet fascinating book by an acclaimed American science writer, “The Information” ranges from biology to particle physics and explores the links between information, communications, data and meaning from earliest times to the present day.

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World. By David Deutsch. Viking; 487 pages; $30. Allen Lane; £25
The long-awaited survey of humanity’s quest for explanation and understanding by an Oxford University quantum physicist who believes that science is as infinite as the human thirst for knowledge.

Revolutions that Made the Earth. By Tim Lenton and Andrew Watson. Oxford University Press; 440 pages; $52.95 and £29.95
An analysis of the evolutionary changes that took place on Earth in response to sudden changes in temperature or atmospheric conditions, by two followers of James Lovelock, the father of the popular theory of Gaia, the self-regulating planetary system.

 

 

 

Culture, society and travel

The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. By Steven Pinker. Viking; 802 pages; $40. Published in Britain as “The Better Angels of our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and its Causes” by Allen Lane; £30
Steven Pinker’s exploration, within psychology, neuroscience, politics and economics, of why all forms of violence have seen huge long-term declines is a subtle piece of natural philosophy to rival that of the great thinkers of the Enlighten8ment. He writes like an angel too.

Adventures in the Orgasmatron: How the Sexual Revolution Came to America. By Christopher Turner. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 544 pages; $35. Fourth Estate; £25
A smart and engaging work of social history that considers sex, psychoanalysis, consumerism and some of the darkest moments of the 20th century.

Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier. By Edward Glaeser. Penguin; 336 pages; $29.95. Macmillan; £25
This enthusiastic guide to the blessings of human proximity explains why half of humanity now lives in cities and why 5m more are moving there from the countryside every month.

Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars. By Sonia Faleiro. Canongate; 240 pages; £12.99. To be published in America in March by Grove Press; $15
A pitch-perfect conga through the dance bars of Mumbai. The author also explores middle-class marriage in India and its hypocrisies, and the challenges of trying to make it on your own in India’s biggest commercial city.

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. By Elif Batuman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 298 pages; $15. Granta; £16.99
A bracing travelogue of literary adventures by a six-foot-tall American-born Turkish academic. Her erudite enthusiasm for Russia’s big, gloomy and occasionally illogical fiction is as vivid as her humour and sense of romance.

People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman. By Richard Lloyd Parry.Jonathan Cape; 404 pages; £17.99. To be published in America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in May; $16
A page-turning, if horrifying, read about the murder of a young Englishwoman in Japan and the dubious workings of the Japanese criminal-justice system. Thorough, fair-minded and full of insight.

Iphigenia in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial. By Janet Malcolm. Yale University Press; 168 pages; $25 and £18
An unputdownable story that takes in child abuse, sexual taboo and a ringside trial seat in front of the famous Supreme Court “hanging judge”, Robert Hanophy.

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything. By David Bellos. Faber & Faber; 400 pages; $27. Particular Books; £20
A wonderful, witty book about words, language and cultural anthropology by a scholar whose fascination with his subject is itself endlessly fascinating.

The Art of Camping: The History and Practice of Sleeping Under the Stars. By Matthew De Abaitua. Hamish Hamilton; 294 pages; £14.99
A memoir of how camping means exploring an unfamiliar place while recreating the safe comforts of home, by an editor-at-large of the Idler and an inveterate fan of guys and poles.

 

Fiction

1Q84. By Haruki Murakami. Books 1 and 2 translated by Jay Rubin and Book 3 by Philip Gabriel. Knopf; 944 pages; $30.50. Harvill; £34.99
A wild and wilful romance involving a black cat, two moons and a host of nocturnal little people—as well as a boy and a girl.

Other People’s Money. By Justin Cartwright. Bloomsbury; 258 pages; $15 and £18.99
Born in South Africa, now living in Britain, Justin Cartwright casts a sharp outsider’s eye on the City of London and its shenanigans. A novel that is both funny and wise.

Open City. By Teju Cole. Random House; 272 pages; $25. Faber & Faber; £12.99
An unusual accomplishment, “Open City” is a precise and poetic meditation on love, race, identity, friendship, memory, dislocation and Manhattan bird life.

The Marriage Plot. By Jeffrey Eugenides. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 416 pages; $28. Fourth Estate; £20
A rich and textured evocation of the quest for marriage or how true love never works out, except at the end of an English novel.

Train Dreams. By Denis Johnson. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 128 pages; $18
This dense, mesmerising novella about a labourer in the American West conjures up a life lived in the 20th century that reads like it was long, long ago.

The Tiger’s Wife. By Tea Obreht. Random House; 352 pages; $15. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; £12.99
This story, by a 25-year-old Serbian-American woman, of a young Balkan doctor named Natalia, her family and their homeland, is highly original, funny and frightening, and proof that there is no formula for precocity. Winner of the 2011 Orange prize for fiction.

The Cat’s Table. By Michael Ondaatje. Knopf; 304 pages; $26. Jonathan Cape; £16.99
A personal story of dislocation by a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist. Superbly poised between the magic of innocence and the melancholy of experience.

The Afrika Reich. By Guy Saville. Hodder & Stoughton; 433 pages; £12.99
A rich and unusual what-if historical thriller that is politically sophisticated and hard to forget.

 

Poetry

Australian Poetry Since 1788. Edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray.University of New South Wales Press; 1,108 pages; $66.95 and £54.95
An exemplary anthology and a generous account of a poetry that deserves to be better known; from Aboriginal song cycles and settler ballads to recent work by Les Murray, Philip Hodgkins and the editors themselves.

Memorial. By Alice Oswald. Faber & Faber; 84 pages; £12.99
This vivid and moving poem weaves together two vital threads from the “Iliad”: the unique ephemerality of each man killed in war and the recurrent, timeless pictures of nature and human activity captured in Homer’s similes.

Clavics. By Geoffrey Hill. Enitharmon Press; 41 pages; $29.95 and £12
An intense and austere new collection by the Oxford professor of poetry, who has been called “the greatest living poet in the English language”.

from the print edition | Books and arts

 

When History becomes taboo: France and the Deportation of Homosexuals in WWII

How many? Sources exist. Historians have studied the question. But in 2012 can one ask how many homosexuals were deported from France during the Nazi occupation because of their sexual orientation? And, if one asks, can one accept the answer?

The outcry over an obscure French deputy's comments sheds light on a particularly fascinating French taboo.

---

It all started when an UMP parliamentarian and member of the Droite Populaire named Christian Vanneste set off a media firestorm by refering to what he called "the famous legend of the deportation of homosexuals" from France in WWII. (view video )

The reaction was immediate.

French politicians from all parties condemned him.

A socialist spokeperson for François Hollande denounced Vanneste’s diatribe as “not only homophobic, but also as denying the Holocaust”. '

UMP members called for him to be kicked out of the party. (“He should be immediately kicked out of the UMP”, tweeted France’s junior minister of housing and UMP member, Benoist Apparu.")

Gaylib compared his remark to Le Pen's famous "detail" dismissal of the Holocaust.

Even  the Front National condemned him. 

Not since Bush's invasion of Iraq have competing French political parties displayed such unity of opinion.

Why?

French politicians have been known to commit, be charged with and even be convicted of  crimes without being expelled from their parties. (Sexual harassment, corruption and influence peddling come to mind.) 

What was so special about these words concerning events 70 years ago?

***

 

Today French schoolchildren learn about the persecution of the "Jews, gypsies and gays" in WWII. President Jacques Chirac officially recognized the deportation of homosexuals in 2005.

So the systematic persecution and deportation of homosexuals in WWII France now belongs to the official French narrative of the Nazi Occupation.

What do historians specialized in this period say about the question?

Renowned French lawyer and Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld says: “I have never seen a document declaring the deportation of homosexuals in France”, adding that while gays were surely deported, it was not specifically because of their sexual orientation.'

(That is: among the Jews, communists and resistance fighters deported, some were also homosexuals.)

La Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Déportation  officially recognizes 62 people deported for homosexuality from France.   (See Le Monde's article on the figures.)

Sixty-two ?

What are we to make of such an number?

Such universal outrage as we are observing among the French political class suggests that many people have a stake in believing the number to be much higher.

Why do they believe this? And why does it matter so much?

How can a straight-forward historical question about World War II be so fraught? 

***

Actually, nearly all questions about World War II in France are fraught.

It took decades of efforts by determined private citizens like the Klarsfelds to identify the 70,000 French Jews who were deported to their deaths.

It took the publication of Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay to awaken the French public to the horrors of Vel d'Hiv. Mitterand's role in Vichy was not made public until the very end of his career. A precise and accurate history of the Resistance has yet to make its way into French public schools (if you have collegiens, ask them to recite their lessons about WWII.) Certain topics, such as the Bataillon Charlemagne, or the failure to change cultural or judicial elites after the war, are scarcely known outside of specialist circles (and even these hesitate to take them on). So sensitivity to Word War II issues is not uncommon. 

Even so, the reaction is unusually virulent.

  ***

There is, of course, the unattractive personality of Vanneste. His Wikipedia page portrays him as generally hostile to gays in a manner familiar to a certain traditional French Catholic electorate (see Christine Boutin). In 2006 he was charged with using offensive language concerning gays, but the charges appear to have been dismissed on appeal as not exceeding the boundaries of freedom of speech ("cassation sans revoi".)

However, historical facts exist independently of Vannestes' personal likes and dislikes. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once famously said: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts."

The job of establishing the facts falls--not to politicians or lobbies (be they conservative Catholic or gay)--but to historians armed with sources.

So why are the UMP, socialists, FN and everyone else yelling bloody murder?

Such violent indignation under such circumstances seems, well, odd. As if a taboo has been touched. But which one?

Few elements are more revealing about a culture than its taboos. Several important and complex ones are at play here. 

A suivre...

 

.

Why I love the Geneva Writers Conference

 

The Geneva Writers Conference, organized by many passionate writers under the gentle but firm guidance of Susan Tiberghien*, needs no advertizing. It's fully booked and always will be. But I would like to pause a moment to consider just why it is so good.

First (and I say this with love) it is not the food. Food, like classrooms and meeting halls, are workmanlike and devoted to craft, not frills. 

And that, ironically, is a plus.

GWC is not part of the luxury writer tourism industry. It is organized by and for writers. Focused. Professional. Spare. A writer in any stage of his/her career can actually learn something here. There are no gimmicks. Just a desire to learn and share.

Second. The atmosphere. Open, welcoming, low key yet buzzing with energy. Everyone is approachable. Nametags are distributed the first day and generally worn nearly to the end. People introduce themselves, exchange stories about work, problems, triumphs, hopes and fears. All to do with writing. Even agents and publishers are friendly.

Third. The instructors. Geneva attracts experienced writers with serious publication track records and a talent for teaching. Poetry. Theater. Memoir. Travel. Fiction. Each class focuses on some aspect of the craft. I am continually blown away by the quality of student in-class writing--though I shouldn't be since many of the students are themselves published writers.  During the Saturday night dinner instructors entertain us with their reading--funny, moving, original texts. The delightfully witty John Zimmer serves as MC. 

Fourth: The bookstore. All participants are invited to bring their books for the bookstore to sell. It's a wonderful way to discover each other's talents.

Fifth. The cost. Hotels and transportation are what eats one's budget--not the workhop. It is priced to be affordable, and that's important.

And finally, most important of all, the participants. I have met fascinating and talented writers in Geneva, some of whom have become good friends.

There are many workshops out there. Few work as well as Geneva. 

 ___

* On Sunday 19 February at 14h00 veteran writer and teacher Susan Tiberghien will lead Writing Short and Long Memoirs at The American Library in Paris

1320 deaths attributed to Mediator drug in French medical scandal that threatens to hit Sarkozy's UMP

 

Nicolas Sarkozy awards Jacques Servier the Grand Croix ... lesinrocks.com

Last year, Jacques Servier, founder and CEO of Laboratoires Servier, the drug company that aggressively marketed the dangerous diabetes drug Mediator as a diet aid, dismissed rumors with a wave of his hand:

"Le Mediator, il ne s'agit que de trois morts." 

"Mediator, it's only three deaths"

-Servier told his employees.

The intrepid researcher who broke the story placed the number at 500. Now, according to Le Monde, two researchers at Inserm are estimating the number of dead at 1320.

Jacques Servier, who was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor  by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, has long been thought to be a major UMP donor. 

Numerous warnings about Servier's drug went ignored by Afssaps, the French version of the FDA (the same agency that did nothing to stop PIPs breast implants). 

Long after similar molecules were banned in the USA, French Social Security continued to reimburse Mediator for use by non-diabetics. 

From 1976 to 2009 it is estimated that more than five million people took the potentially dangerous pills.

Originally licensed for diabetics, French family doctors began to prescribe Mediator in the mid-1990s as an appetite-suppressant pushed by agressive marketing from Servier.

"Despite the ringing of alarm bells over the years about its links to heart disease, both in other countries and within the French medical profession," The Economist states,  "the drug was not withdrawn in France until 2009. By that time, according to different estimates, between 500 and 2,000 people who had been taking the drug had died."

There is hope that this scandal, combined with the PIPs scandal, coming after the contaminated blood, the mad cow, the asbestos and the growth hormone scandals, might help to shed some cleansing light on the dark and highly lucrative corners of the French drug industry. 

However in the absence of class action suits and political will, there is little evidence as yet that anything will change.

 

The true cost of top French prepas : higher education in France

American universities cost an arm and a leg. French prepas are free. So it's a no brainer, isn't it?

Not according to Le Monde. 

France's newspaper of record for teachers, the most conservative of all French publications when it comes to changing education, has gone public with a shocking article on how elite prepas treat top French students.

In "Prépas, Excellence au Prix Fort"  Marie Desplechin, winner of the prestigious Prix Médicis for La Vie Sauve, denounces the brutal experience inflicted upon France's best and brightest. The true cost to our students of the elite French prépas is high, suggests the article, too high perhaps?

Sixty hours weeks, including 35 hours in the classroom, astonishingly bad grades, forced to abandon music, sport and other non-essential activities in order to survive the brutal selection process imposed by the concours, students--hard working, brilliant students--pay the price of their ambitions.

To readers of Peter Gumbel's On Achève Bien Les Ecoliers (whom Desplechin cites) or my own Sorbonne Confidential none of this will come as that much of a surprise. But for many French parents who still put their faith in the ideals of the meritocracy, the shock is great.

Over 4000 likes on Facebook already. 

In a year that saw the Arab Spring, can change come to France's Education Nationale?

See also: interviews with prépa professors, also in Le Monde, "Nous sommes des bourreaux bienveillants"   as well as Peter Gumbel's excellent On Achève Bien Les Ecoliers. 

For reactions AGAINST Desplechin's article see: Eduspros.fr et universitaires blogspot, 

Paris Writers News February 2012: literary events, new books, workshops

This month, news from the Geneva Writers Conference, Upstairs at Duroc, The Young Authors Fiction Festival, Fred Leebron, Cynthia Haven, Tracie Morris, Judy Pou, Lance Tait, Fernanda Eberstadt, Monique Wells, Donald Morrison, Robert Camuto, Noella Marcellino, Denyse Beaulieu, Philip Caputo, Pamela Druckerman, John Morris, Fred Weissler, Elyse Michaels-Berger, Sallie Chaballier, JANE COPE, KIT FRYATT, PANSY MAURER-ALVAREZ, JOE ROSS, John Baxter  and more...

 

 

SELECTED LITERARY EVENTS 

Wed 01 February 2012 19h30  Fernanda Eberstadt presents her latest novel Rat, which touches on children parenting parents, modern terror, and the ragtag legacy of the 60’s. AT The American Library in Paris 

 

 

 

 

 Saturday, February 4th 2012 at 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm. Cost: 45€. The Iliad and The Odyssey.  For more info: http://www.litsalon.co.uk/events/the-iliad-paris-salon-intensive-february-4-2012/

 Feb.4 2012: A three hour intensive study of two great short stories: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Runaway by Alice Munro. Salon cost 30 euros (includes critical materials); potluck brunch break. For more details, http://www.litsalon.co.uk/events/the-yellow-wallpaper-munros-runaway-short-salon-intensive-brunch-paris-feb-4-2012/

February 3-5 The Geneva Writers Conference with Patricia Duncker, Sheila Kohler, Bret Lott, Nick Barlay, Dinty W. Moore, Susan Tiberghien, Rob Drummer, Naomi Shihab Nye, Wallis Wilde-Menozzi’, Hannah Westland, Miriam Goderich, David Applefield, Colin Harrison  Catherine Nelson-Pollard, John Zimmer, Dinah Lee Küng. This outstanding event, held every two years, has become a magnet for up-and-coming Paris writers. 

 

Sunday, 5th February 2012 at 7.30 pm MOVING PARTS presents a reading of a play by Lance  Tait "Gambling Fever" AT Carr's Pub & Restaurant, 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris Metro : Tuileries

 

 MONDAY 6TH FEBRUARY 7:00PM John Baxter will read from The Most Beautiful Walk in The World AT Shakespeare & Co

 

6 February 20h SPOKEN WORD Paris (check site for details): Come read YOUR work in ENGLISH, FRENCH, ITALIAN or any other language; play a short musical piece or read a poem by an author you admire...  20h sign up/hang out 20h30 first round starts 15 min break 21h45 second round starts 15 min break 23h00 third round starts stop at midnight-- bar stays open till after one). AT: the basement of Le Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Métro Parmentier/Couronnes/Oberkampf

 

Lundi 6 Février Lecture with the author, Loïc Wacquant, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and researcher at the Centre Européen de Sociologie et de Science Politique in Paris. His works on urban marginality, ethno-racial domination, the criminal State, the policy of reason and sociological theory have been translated into more than twenty languages. AT NYU in France 56 rue de Passy  Paris, 75016 Entrée libre, dans la limite des places disponibles

 

 

Tue 07 February 2012 19h30  Following the Flavors of the African Diaspora with Monique Wells AT The American Library in Paris 

 

 

Tuesday, 7 February 2012 18h30 Cynthia Haven will speak about her experiences in print and online media, and on making the transition from being a "critic/reviewer" to actually creating books that foster international culture.   AT The American University of Paris, Room 29 in the Grenelle Building.147, rue de Grenelle 75007 Paris For more info see website

 

Wed 08 February 2012 19h30  Donald Morrison, author of Comment Obama a perdu l’Amérique, assesses Barack Obama’s presidency and the stakes in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. AT The American Library in Paris 

 

February 8, 3:15 p.m. Fred Leebron Open Creative Writing Class Event.   Creative writing discussion with novelist Fred Leebron.    American University of Paris, 6, rue du Colonel Combes, Room C-34.

(see more under workshops)

 WEDNESDAY 8TH FEBRUARY 5:00PM WORKSHOP: Fred Leebron will give an interactive workshop on 'Embracing the Difficult: Writing Beyond What's Comfortable', for fiction writers, poets, and nonfiction writers.   AT Shakespeare & Co (see more under workshops)

 

Thursday February 9, 2012, 7 PM UPSTAIRS AT DUROC the Paris literary journal invites you to a LAUNCH READING for its ISSUE # 13. Come pick up your copy and listen to new work by JANE COPE, KIT FRYATT, PANSY MAURER-ALVAREZ, JOE ROSS AT  Berkeley Books of Paris, 8 rue Casimir Delavigne, 75006 Paris, Métro Odéon

 

Thu 09 February 2012 19h30 AAWE @ The Library: Understanding French Higher Education with the AAWE authors of  Beyond the Bac – Higher Education in France and Abroad. Speakers : Fred Weissler, professor of mathematics at Université Paris 13; Elyse Michaels- Berger, former Academic Director of the HEC MBA Program; and Sallie Chaballier, co-chair of the FAWCO education task force and AAWE coordinator of Paris College Day. AT The American Library in Paris 

 

 

11 February 10-16h30 Ireland and Cultural Memory: Dr Oona Frawley (School of English, National University of Ireland Maynooth) will discuss 20th century literature and nostalgia. AT: Centre Culturel Irlandais, 5 rue des Irlandais, 75005 Paris. RER: Luxembourg

 

12^th February  at 7.30 pm MOVING PARTS presents a reading of a play by   John Binkley "A Modern Fairy Tale"   AT Carr's Pub & Restaurant, 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris Metro : Tuileries 

12 February 19h30 Double Change vous invite à une lecture bilingue de Tracie Morris et Jody Pou. AT: la galerie éof 15, rue Saint-Fiacre, 75002 M° Grands Boulevards ou Bonne Nouvelle

13 February 20h onwards SPOKEN WORD Paris  AT: the basement of Le Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Métro Parmentier/Couronnes/Oberkampf

 

Wed 15 February 2012 19h30  Passion Panel about Wine, Cheese, and Perfume with Robert Camuto, author of Corkscrewed and Palmento: A Sicilian Wine Odyssey, Noella Marcellino, Benedictine nun,a Fulbright Scholar and  the subject of a PBS documentary called The Cheese Nun. and  Denyse Beaulieu, editor for Citizen K and author of The Perfume Lover to be released in March. AT The American Library in Paris 

 

 

 

Thu 16 February 2012 19h30 Philip Caputo will present Crossers, a blistering new novel about the brutality and beauty of life on the Arizona-Mexico border and about the unyielding power of the past to shape our lives. AT The American Library in Paris 

 

 

19^th February at 7.30 pm MOVING PARTS presents a reading of a play by Roderick Ford  "The Numberless House AT Carr's Pub & Restaurant, 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris Metro : Tuileries

 

 

20 February 20h onwards SPOKEN WORD Paris ( AT: the basement of Le Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Métro Parmentier/Couronnes/Oberkampf

 

Wed 22 February 2012 19h30 Journalist Pamela Druckerman explores the secret behind France's astonishingly well-behaved children in Bringing Up Bébé.AT The American Library in Paris 

 

 

 

 Wed 22 Feb 2012 9pm-2 am  Bookclub at Le Carmen 1st Birthday Party!    1 year, 10 soirées, 1000s of books (and phone-numbers) swapped. Baby got big! And we want to thank every single one of you that's ever joined us. So come one, come all and celebrate.  AT  Carmen  34 Rue Duperré, 75009 Paris, France  (read interview with founders Rosa Rankin Gee nd Jethro Turner)

 

 

 

23 February 19h00 Old Library Visit: admission free, reservation recommended. The Old Library of the Irish College is one of the few surviving libraries of the many colleges, convents and monasteries which were situated in the Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève area of Paris until the end of the 18th century. This visit provides a further opportunity to see the treasures of the Old Library - its three illuminated manuscripts dating from c.1500. AT: Centre Culturel Irlandais, 5 rue des Irlandais, 75005 Paris. RER: Luxembourg

 

27 February 20h onwards SPOKEN WORD Paris  AT: the basement of Le Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Métro Parmentier/Couronnes/Oberkampf

 

Wed 29 February 2012 19h30  John Morris, who has been called "the world's most influential photography editor," will talk about his legendary career. AT The American Library in Paris 

 

 SUBMISSIONS  -- attention parents!!

2012 Young Authors Fiction Festival - The Fiction Festival is open to all students ages 5 to 18 in the greater Paris area who write in English. It offers a wonderful opportunity for educators to encourage creative writing among their students. Deadline for submissions is midnight 1 April 2012. For more information see site.

 

 WORKSHOPS

February 3-5 The Geneva Writers Conference with Patricia Duncker, Sheila Kohler, Bret Lott, Nick Barlay, Dinty W. Moore, Susan Tiberghien, Rob Drummer, Naomi Shihab Nye, Wallis Wilde-Menozzi’, Hannah Westland, Miriam Goderich, David Applefield, Colin Harrison  Catherine Nelson-Pollard, John Zimmer, Dinah Lee Küng. This outstanding event, held every two years, has become a magnet for up-and-coming Paris writers. 

 

SALON: Saturday, February 4th 2012 at 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm. Cost: 45€. The Iliad and The Odyssey.  For more info: http://www.litsalon.co.uk/events/the-iliad-paris-salon-intensive-february-4-2012/

 

SALON: The Yellow Wallpaper & Munro’s ‘Runaway: Short Salon Intensive brunch Paris Feb.4 2012:  30 euros (includes critical materials);  potluck brunch break. See http://www.litsalon.co.uk/events/the-yellow-wallpaper-munros-runaway-short-salon-intensive-brunch-paris-feb-4-2012/

 

SALON: Jane Eyre/Wide Sargasso Sea Salon Intensive Paris: Sunday, February 5th 2012 at 3:00 -8:00 PM. Cost: 45€  These two works, taken together in this Salon intensive, will offer interesting commentaries on the positioning of the female as a space for madness and rebellion. http://www.litsalon.co.uk/events/jane-eyrewide-sargasso-sea-salon-intensive-paris-feb-5-2012/

 

February 8, 3:30 p.m. Open Creative Writing Class Event: Creative writing discussion with novelist Fred Leebron. Fred Leebron directs the MFA in Creative Writing program at Queens. He also is a professor of English at Gettysburg College, and a former director of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. His novels include "Six Figures," "In the Middle of All This" and "Out West." He has received a Pushcart Prize, a Michener Award, a Stegner Fellowship, and an O. Henry Award. He is co-editor of "Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology" and co-author of "Creating Fiction: A Writer’s Companion." AT: American University of Paris, 6, rue du Colonel Combes, Room C-34.

 

WORKSHOP 8 February 5:00pm: Fred Leebron will give an interactive workshop on 'Embracing the Difficult: Writing Beyond What's Comfortable', to help take your writing to the next level, for fiction writers, poets, and nonfiction writers. This workshop will help you transcend your writing voice and establish new territories in your creative process. Fred Leebron, director of the Queens University MFA Program in Creative Writing, is working on an initiative to launch a European MFA Program beginning June 2012, and featuring Jayne Anne Phillips, Dinaw Mengestu, Aleksandar Hemon, Jeffrey Greene, Gwyneth Lewis, David St. John, Robert Antoni, and David Bezmozgis on its faculty. Free and open to all but limited space. Please email Fred directly for further details at [email protected]. AT: Shakespeare & Co., 37rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel

 

The American Library in Paris is pleased to offer three two-hour writing workshops designed for writers at any level.

 On Sunday 19 February at 14h00 veteran writer and teacher Susan Tiberghien leads Writing Short and Long Memoirs.

 On Thursday 8 March at 10h30 author and journalist Lisa Pasold leads Writing with Your Brain aimed at flexing your writing muscle! Then on Saturday 31 March at 14h00 editor and writer Heather Hartley leads Left Bank Literature where you'll take inspiration from the writings of Left Bank authors to develop ideas in your own prose. Free to members of the Library, registration is required. Visit the program page of the sessions noted above for details.

 

 Simply Sound : A series of theatre workshops for individuals with an intermediate level of English. This workshop is specifically geared to improve pronunciation and syntax. The workshop will incorporate acting techniques, exercises, games, short texts, and improvisation. Une serie des ateliers ouvert aux personnes ayant un niveau intermédiaire d'anglais. L'atelier propose des exercices d'acteur, jeux, court textes et improvisation comme moyens d'apprivoiser la prononciation, sons et le syntaxe. Pre-registration is required. Please call   01 77 15 71 90  /   06 37 66 27 98  or [email protected] Dates: 28th January, 4th February, 31st March. Time: Saturdays 17h-19h. Venue: 35, rue St. Roch 75001 Paris. M° Pyramides, Tuileries, Opera. Fee for one session 18€ Students 15€ For students already enrolled in other classes, sessions are 11€

 

Theatre Workshops for English Teachers. A Cycle of Four Sessions.These workshops are specifically geared for English Teachers who wish to acquire theatre techniques as pedagogical tools. The workshop will cover acting techniques, exercises, voice and movement. The workshops can be attended separately but it is recommended to attend the entire cycle as there will be a progression leading to more individual work. Pre-registration is required. Please call             01 77 15 71 90       /             06 37 66 27 98       or [email protected] Time Saturdays 16h-19h. Dates: Saturdays, 21st January, 11th February, 10th March, 24th March Venue: 35, rue St. Roch 75001 Paris. Metro Pyramides, Tuileries, Opera. Fee: Individual session 60€. Cycle of four sessions 180€ For participants in other classes: one session is 45€. Cycle of four sessions 145€

 

High Concept Ambitions: Master Class with agent Mary Kole.Saturday, March 10 from 10:00-1:00pm in Paris. Cost: 70 Euros Register: Please contact ARA Dana Carey at [email protected]:

 

WRITING WORKSHOPS: Sat March 24 (2pm – 5pm) & Sun March 25 (11am – 5pm) Writer Lisa Pasold offers DON’T JUST SIT THERE: a literary workshop on finding and unleashing your creative inspiration.  Fee: 80 euros for weekend (limited space--last year's workshop sold out, so pre-registration essential) For a full outline of the workshop & to register, visit lisapasold.com