By Edward Nawotka AUCKLAND: Looking for an enhanced e-book that you can read in English, Spanish, Japanese, Italian Chinese or . . . Maori? Kiwa Media, a software developer in Auckland, New Zealand has has what you need. Throughout 2010, Kiwa Media has launched some fifteen enhanced e-books for children -– dubbed QBooks –- that function like typical illustrated e-books, …
A Very French Melancholy: Olivier Adam, the Man Who Lost the Goncourt
• The latest in Lewis Manalo’s series looking at underappreciated writers worthy of wider translation considers the work of French writer Olivier Adam, who was shortlisted for this year’s Prix Goncourt. • Prior articles in the series cover Louis Cha (China), Rodrigo Fresan (Argentina), Agnar Mykle (Norway), and Stephen Vizinczey (Hungary). By Lewis Manalo Anyone who gives half an ear …
Lebanon’s Francophone Book Fair Honors Camus, Features Local, Int’l Talents
By Olivia Snaije Opening on the heels of the Francophone summit in Montreux, Switzerland – Lebanon’s 17th Francophone book fair kicks off this Thursday in Beirut and runs until November 7th. Articles about the former French protectorate regularly lament the loss of French speakers to English but the Beirut event has nevertheless gained the status of being the third Francophone …
Haitian Authors Star at France’s Etonnants Voyageurs Festival
By Olivia Snaije SAINT-MALO: This past weekend, the 21st edition of the French literary and film festival Etonnants Voyageurs took place in Saint-Malo, Brittany. While Russia, with an impressive line-up of authors and films was the guest of honor, Haitian writers played the starring role. Last January the second Haitian edition of the festival was just about to begin in …
Review: The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu
By Gwendolyn Dawson Jack, the first-person narrator of Mathias Malzieu’s most recent novel, is born in Edinburgh on an uncommonly cold day in April 1874. A clever midwife saves the newborn from certain death by surgically implanting a cuckoo clock in his chest to regulate his weak heart. Abandoned by his mother and sporting a loudly ticking clock for a heart, Jack …
Review: The Salt Smugglers by Gérard de Nerval
By Gwendolyn Dawson The Riancey Amendment passed into law in France on July 16, 1850 and imposed a serial novel tax on newspapers, charging one centime per copy of any newspaper that included an installment of a serial novel. The law was based on the belief that serial novels had been responsible for fomenting subversive ideas. Gérard de Nerval’s The …
My Untranslatable Novel
Vanina Marsot’s novel about an accidental translator living in Paris is about language — French and American English. But how do you translate a novel about translation?
Bonus Material: Ten Things French Women Know
By Debra Ollivier 1. French women love men. A lot. They prefer men to be in the picture, not out of it. 2. French women prefer reciprocity and complement over strict egalitarianism. 3. French women don’t need things to fit neatly into a box. Romantic possibilities don’t have to be emotionally tidy or safe. Desire can be of greater import …