René Laporte: HOTEL DE LA SOLITUDE

 

May 2012, 128 pages

Under the German occupation, Jérôme Bourdaine settles into a hotel nestled above Monte Carlo. The tale draws us into this quaint haven peopled with ghosts and frequented by a Russian immigrant and his wife, whom Jérôme is not indifferent to. A novel bathed in a dreamlike haze, as if outside the real world. 

Written in 1942, HOTEL DE LA SOLITUDE takes us on the tracks of Jérôme Bourdaine, a shining post-war light cavalry officer, who retreats to the singular Hotel de la Turbie on the Riviera to pursue his reverie. Cut off from the rest of the world, this timeless refuge with Quranic calligraphy adorning the walls, this product of the mind, was run by a sweet bustling couple, the Barcas, happy to invoke richly-coloured shadows from the past, ghosts of 1900 who were the glory of the hotel. Into the heart of this daytime institution for lost hearts enters Zoya Sernitche, a beautiful woman accompanied by her comical husband, jittery like a bat. It’s the start of a love affair between Jérôme and Zoya among the antique ruins that decorate the place. A ballet of weary shadows and spirited hearts that evaporate in the morning, a short-lived romance.

Born in Toulouse in 1905, René Laporte is drawn to literature from a very early age. A great admirer of Apollinaire and the Surrealists, he founded the magazine Cahiers Libres and the publishing house of the same name. Both a poet and a novelist, he won the Prix Interallié in 1936 for LES CHASSES DE NOVEMBRE. He wrote in clandestine magazines and turned away from Surrealism in favour of political poetry. He was barely forty-eight when he died of an accident in March 1954.

Yolaine Destremau: NUMEROS MASQUES

 

May 2012, 176 pages

            The captivating story of a woman who gets caught up in an absurd quest for a missing Picasso painting; pouring her life and savings into the search, she slowly descends into madness.

Sorting through his papers after the death of her father, Ingrid stumbles across a photo of a portrait of her grandmother painted by Picasso. Convinced that the painting must have been sold on the black market, she gradually becomes obsessed with the idea of tracking it down.

So Ingrid decides to quit her job as a professor of philosophy, sell her apartment and hire a private eye on the down and out. She winds up spending the last of her savings on a trip to the United States to meet with an expert painting hunter, Luis Selinonte. Along the way, having turned into something of a kleptomaniac, she steals one of Picasso’s sketchbooks from a museum.

Ingrid manages to seduce Selinonte, but he doesn’t turn out to be of much use in her quest. Finally, worn out and broke, sleeping in a train station with the homeless people, she decides to give up, and to sell the notebook on the black market.

The last time we see Ingrid, she is stumbling along a beach in Miami, trembling, clutching her bag and mumbling like a madwoman... until she gets mugged by a man who knocks her out and makes off with the bag in which she kept the famous sketchbook.

Fascinating, absurd and touching, this novel uses the art world as a backdrop for a subtle and skillful portrait of a woman hittin rock bottom.

            Yolaine Destremau has been a painter and a literary translator. She now devotes herself to her writing, and is the author of WHITE NOISE, JOURS DE SOUFFRANCE, ORTIZ, CELLE QUI TRIOMPHE and L'OMBRE DES JARACANDAS.

Raphaël Jerusalmy: SAUVER MOZART

March 2012, 160 pages

            Germany, 1939. The story of an old man’s last act of heroism: a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, but a successful gesture to save Mozart’s music.

As the rise of Nazism is in full swing, Otto J. Steiner, a stubborn old music critic from Salzburg, is spending his last days cloistered in a crumbling sanatorium. He keeps a diary, in which he describes both his daily routine and his occasional adventures. Asked to program the city’s music festival, he winds up attending the infamous meeting between Hitler and Mussolini. He poisons the coffee that is served to the two men, but his attempted assassination fails miserably. So he decides that the least he can do is to save Mozart, whose music is being damaged by the Nazis’ over-emphatic playing. When the day of the music festival arrives, he manages to slip an interlude into the soloist’s sheet music: a violin solo by a well-known Jewish composer. The crowd of uniformed men cheers enthusiastically; Otto has won his bet. He has gotten a roomful of Nazis to applaud Jewish culture. While it may not mean much in the greater scheme of things, it was a brave thing for him to do.

Clever and appealing, this novel honors minor heroics, in a rhythmically poetical style. A delightfully exhilarating tale.

            Raphaël Jerusalmy, a graduate of the Ecole Normale Superieure and the Sorbonne, had a first career in the Israeli intelligence services, then switched to humanitarian and educational missions. He is now an old-book dealer in Tel Aviv. SAUVER MOZART is his first novel.

Vénus Khoury-Ghata: LE FACTEUR DES ABRUZZES

 

March 2012, 160 pages

Laure is the wife of Luc, who died 10 years ago. As a geneticist, Luc was fascinated by Malaterra, an Abruzzi village populated by descendants of Albanese refugees who crossed the Adriatic to Italy a hundred years before. When Luc returned from his travels, he would let Laure type and edit his notes and the results of his research. But Luc never returned from his last journey to Malaterra, leaving Laure a widow. In order to mourn him properly, Laure decides to meet the people with whom Luc spent so much time away from her. But the village is inhospitable to her: being a foreigner, Laure is seen as an intruder. Luckily, she meets Yussuf, the postman, who offers her an insight into the life of the village and tells her the story of its inhabitants. Little by little, people begin to talk and Laure catches a glimpse of another Luc she thought she knew.

A novelist and a poet, Vénus Khoury-Ghata is the author of several novels, amongst which SEPT PIERRES POUR LA FEMME ADULTERE, LA FILLE QUI MARCHAIT DANS LE DESERT, QUELLE EST LA NUIT PARMI LES NUITS and OU VONT LES ARBRES? (Prix Goncourt de la Poésie 2011). Translated into more than fifteen languages, she has won many awards, notably the Grand Prix de la poésie de l'Académie française in 2009.

"C’est presque un long poème, ce récit qui raconte l’odyssée d’une femme dix ans après la mort de son mari." France 5

Yannick Grannec: LA DEESSE DES PETITES VICTOIRES

 

August 2012, 472 pages

• German rights just sold to ECOWIN and US rights to OTHER PRESS !  

The life and work of the great mathematician of Czech origin Kurt Gödel, as told by his wife Adele years after his death to a young academic, Anna, whose life will be changed in the process.

            Princeton University, 1980. A young and relatively ambitious librarian named Anna Roth is set the task to get back Kurt Gödel’s records – the most fascinating and impenetrable mathematician of the 20^th century. Her mission consists in cajoling and finally taming the great man’s widow, Adele, a notorious shrew who seems to be satisfying a belated desire for revenge on the Establishment by refusing to hand over documents of immeasurable scientific value.

            The very first time they meet, Adele soon discovers Anna’s hidden agenda. Strangely enough, she doesn’t reject her, but the old woman lays down the rule: she knows she is to die soon, and she has got one last story to tell, a story no one was ever willing to listen to. It begins almost like a tale: Once upon a time, there was a simple and happy young girl, a dancer in a cabaret. She fell in love with a young prodigy from a wealthy family who was anything but destined for her...

            From the flamboyant Vienna of the 1930s to post-War Princeton, from the Anschluss to McCarthyism, from the end of the positivist ideal to the advent of the nuclear bomb, Anna discovers the epic life of a genius who never learned how to live, and of a woman who only knew how to love. A moving journey into the life of the loving wife of a great man, and a fascinating panorama of the political and scientific revolutions of the 20^th century.

            Yannick Grannec trained as an industrial designer. She currently works as a graphic designer and is a maths enthusiast. LA DÉESSE DES PETITES VICTOIRES is her first novel, and she devoted four years of her life on research and writing.

Lucile Bordes: JE SUIS LA MARQUISE DE CARABAS

August 2012, 144 pages

The touching journey of a family of marionettists across Europe across three generations, between the 19^th and 20^th centuries. A story that speaks for all those who struggle with the passing times and the changes in the world.

JE SUIS LA MARQUISE DE CARABAS retraces the history of the Grand Pitou Theatre over three generations: its establishment by Auguste, who in 1850 abandons his job as a grocer’s boy to follow a traveling marionettist; the prosperity realised at the turn of the century by Emile, a brilliant draughtsman who masters the technical progress of the age and excels at stage direction; and, finally, the decline in the first half of the 20^th century when the family comes up against the competition of the cinema, a field they struggle to adapt to.

Now in her turn steward of this dynasty of brilliant fairground entertainers, Lucile Bordes embraces her family’s legacy to compose a story filled with poetic whimsy, bringing to life the fascinating world of marionettes. Preferring the art of allusion to historical detail, she manages a tour de force: a century in the life of an exceptional family portrayed in broad strokes on a small canvas.

A beautiful tale performed by a new voice, offering an overview of the changes in art, family life and politics throughout the last two centuries.

Lucile Bordes lives in Seyne-sur-Mer, France, and teaches literature and stylistics. JE SUIS LA MARQUISE DE CARABAS is her first novel.

François Cusset: A L'ABRI DU DECLIN DU MONDE

 

August 2012, 352 pages

            In Paris, a demonstration spins out of control and degenerates into rioting. The country is on the verge of revolution. Years later, four friends look back over that extraordinary day. All four have been deeply affected by the rioting. Over the course of a single afternoon, they each describe what they have done with their lives since that day. But make no mistake, they are really talking to themselves, telling the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Then, by coincidence, they all attend the same conference. They spend a night outside of time, outside of the real world, contemplating what has become of their friendship, their dreams, their convictions and their sense of humor. Together they face up to the memories and the ghosts which time had erased, and which they had done their best to forget.

A L'ABRI DU DECLIN DU MONDE is the novel of a generation. The one of lost illusions, the one for which rejecting the establishment was the only way to exist. Cusset’s writing is firm, lyrical, precise and inspired. Both profound and poetic, this novel bears witness to an era that forged our society, the last vestige of a more ideological time.

            François Cusset was born in 1969. He is a professor of American civilization at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre, and contributes to several French and American journals. He has written several essays in the fields of intellectual history and contemporary politics. A L'ABRI DU DECLIN DU MONDE is his first novel.

Metin Arditi: LE TURQUETTO

August 2011, 288 pages

              ·    65,000 copies sold in France

·    Rights sold to Turkey (Can Yayinlari), Greece (Kalendis), Italy (Neri Pozza), Poland (Noir sur Blanc) and Serbia (Laguna), and under option in Slovenia
·    Awarded the Prix des Libraires de Nancy – Le Point and the Prix Page des Libraires

·    Short-listed for the Prix Roman FNAC

Could it be possible that a famous painting - whose signature bears a discrete anomaly - is the only work to remain by one of the greatest painters of the Venetian Renaissance? Equal to Titian or Veronese?

Born in Constantinople in about 1519, Elias Soriano was very young when he immigrated to Venice under a secret identity. He changed his name to Elias Troyanos, spent a lot of time in Titian’s workshop, and made an outstanding career as the Turquetto: the "Little Turk", as Titian used to nickname him. Arditi recounts the hectic destiny of the artist who was born a Jew in Muslim lands, had developed a Christian faith, and who was finally prosecuted for heresy. His multicultural experience enhanced the sublimation of his art by the fusion of the art of colour which he acquired in Venice, by the precision of his drawing he exercised in Florence, and by his native ability for spirituality. According to Arditi, the addition of these gifts and  Turquetto’s broad vision of the world made him “the greatest painter of the Renaissance”. 

This colourful novel is the story of the life of a man, who had an unstoppable passion for art and painting, and who denied and hid his religion that forbade him to be a painter in the context of the Renaissance. It is a rhythmic and richly chromatic account that focuses on themes such as filiation, the complex connection between the art world and power, and the religious influences on Turquetto’s work.

                Metin Arditi was born in Turkey and is at the confluence of several Mediterranean civilizations and cultures. He now lives in Switzerland where he is a lecturer at Ecole polytechnique. He is also the author of VICTORIA-HALL (2004, Prix du Premier Roman de Sablet), L’IMPREVISIBLE (2006, Prix des lecteurs Fnac Riviera), LA FILLE DES LOUGANIS (2007, Prix Verion Femina Virgin Megastore ; Prix Ronsard des lycéens and Prix de l’Office central des bibliothèques 2008).

« Metin Arditi a composé une espèce de conte philosophique et humaniste, une célébration optimiste de la création artistique, plus forte que tout et qui finit par triompher des pires obstacles : la pauvreté, le fanatisme, la mort même »

Livres Hebdo

« Un mélange irrésistible d’expériences et de connaissances »

Edmonde Charles-Roux de l’Académie Goncourt, in La Provence

« Roman historique, roman d’aventures, impeccablement construit »

Le Point

« Entre ombre et lumière, avec force de détails, Metin Arditi met magistralement en perspective l’art pictural avec les contradictions du pouvoir, de la religion et de la filiation » Page

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…”

About us

Agence de l’Est is a Paris-based literary agency specialised in selling foreign rights.

We have been offering quality French authors since 1999 to publishers in Central Europe, the Baltic States and the Balkans, on behalf of French publishing houses.

This blog will reflect two of our main interests :

- The sales of book rights, in all existing formats :

It has been our core activity since the beginning of the Agency and we’d like this blog to bring you up-to-date information on our authors (book presentations, short interviews of authors, extracts in French and English, etc) ;

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We’d like this blog, and our Twitter (@AgDelEst), to bring you the latest information on the industry’s transition to digital, and to be part of the change by offering “digital only” books in the near future.

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