Advanced information on the forthcoming 2012 literary season in France

In relation to our tweet earlier on today (entitled "For French speakers : premières infos sur la rentrée littéraire 2012 : http://url.exen.fr/58229/" @AgDelEst)

Here is the translation of a few excerpts of the article from national daily Le Figaro on the forthcoming 2012 literary season in France:

“According to the professional magazine of the French publishing world, Livres Hebdo, 646 French and foreign novels will be published between mid-August and mid-October. A careful literary critic would have to read ten books a day during two months to read them all! On a more serious level, this number shows that the crisis also hurts the publishing world: the 2012 production is inferior to those of 2010 and 2011.

An even stronger sign: less and less first novels are being published. In 2012, only 69 new authors have had the luck to be chosen by the publishing houses; they were 121 in 2004.”

(…)

The article mentions the forthcoming novel of Laurent Gaudé (Prix Goncourt 2004) :

POUR SEUL CORTEGE by Laurent Gaudé: Alexander the Great is going to die. To succeed him, the empire needs a man who is conducted by the same spirit of conquest…

(…)

The article mentions a first novel that we are most proud to represent :

“Another novel which is likely to be a success: LA DEESSE DES PETITES VICTOIRES, written by a young woman, Yannick Grannec. The synopsis: in 1980 at the University of Princeton, the librarian Anna Roth is given the responsibility of recovering the archives of the mathematician Kurt Gödel. She has to tame the nagging widow who, above all expectations, does not reject her but sets rules. Aware that she will soon die, she is even willing to tell a story that no one has ever wanted to hear.

This presentation has already seduced Pocket [a major mass-market paperback publisher in France], which is said to have paid a lot…”