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Carole ACHACHE
The author
Carole Achache has been a stills photographer, working for famous filmmakers such as Sautet, Losey and
Tavernier. Following L‟Indienne de Cortès (Robert Laffont, 2002), La Plage de Trouville is her second
novel. She has also published two books of photographs: Chantier en cours and Des fleurs (Thierry
Magnier, 2004 and 2006).
Her work at Stock
“La plage de Trouville”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: February 2008
356 pages
Rights available
+--+
The book
―1999. Three years after my mother‘s death, I receive a phone call from a stranger. The man works at the
Beaubourg museum and is in charge of its collections. He tells me about a painting, stolen from my grandparents by the Nazis, and announces that he will return it to me. I immediately get goose pimples. The
painting, he says, is La plage de Trouville, by Jacques Mauny. I tell him I have two other paintings by
Mauny.
It is as if History has caught up with me. I feel utterly confused. This man has suggested that I go through
family papers, trying to find trace of this third work. I cannot really turn my back on this, yet the timing is
really bad. This past is a burden. I resent it. After my mother‘s death, I had decided to forget.
We decide to meet, and exchange contact details. La plage de Trouville was apparently spotted at my
grand-father‟s house in 1930. The Germans took it in 1942. And, so this man says, it is up to me to prove
that this painting belonged to my family till that date. I am speechless. All the witnesses are dead. There are
no photographs. Everything from that time has disappeared.
Things have been turned up-side-down. I am now in the position of the applicant who has to keep pestering
the state till she gets back what belongs to her.‖
***
Vassilis ALEXAKIS
The author
Vassilis Alexakis shares his life between Paris and Athens since 1968. He has published more than fifteen
books, including ―Ap. J.-C.‖ (Grand Prix du Roman de l‟Académie française), ―Talgo,‖ ―Papa,‖ ―La langue
maternelle‖ (Prix Médicis), ―Le coeur de Marguerite‖ and ―Avant.‖
His works at Stock
“Ap. J.-C.” – Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française 2007
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: August 2007
396 pages
Rights not available for Greece. Rights sold to:
Romania (Trei), Croatia (Vukovic & Runjic), Serbia
(Geopoetika), Bulgaria (Kama), Russia (Limbus),
Italy (Crocetti Editore)
The book
The story starts today, in Athens, with 89-year-old Nausicaa asking her lodger, a student, to investigate the
monks of the Mount Athos. Is she planning of bequeathing her fortune to them? Is she looking for the
brother that disappeared fifty years ago? In spite of his lack of interest for ancient history and the preSocratic, the young man accepts the mission.
His investigation takes him very far away, one thousand years back, at the time when the first monastery
was built, and even further in the Antiquity, when the Mount Athos was first inhabited. He discovers that
there are martyrs amongst the Gods of the Olympus thanks to a Christianity that imposed itself through
centuries of destructions and massacres. He meets increasingly singular characters: a journalist for whom an
orthodox mass is a work of art, a historian who claims that Christianity does not come as the continuation of
the Antiquity but follows it like ‗night follows day‘, a defrocked monk, a Peruvian poet who lives on the
Sacred Mountain, the members of a strange community established near Salonika whose rituals include
dancing on burning coal twice a year. He comes into contact with a French monk, the owner of a house in
Normandy where the abbot Prévost wrote Manon Lescaut, and with a mad mystic who greets passing planes
with a Byzantine flag. He discovers an extremely wealthy community that yields great power on the
political life of the country – a community which no-one dares investigating and which privileges no-one
thinks of contesting. Ap. J.-C. is a book on Ancient times that has a lot to tell us about our present and
future.
“Paris-Athènes”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: January 2006
270 pages
Rights available except for Greece
The book
Words, of course, take up a central position in this autobiography with novelistic features: words learnt first
in Athens and Santorin a long time ago, words discovered in Lille and Paris which allowed Vassilis
Alexakis to write his first novels, and again Greek words, forgotten and rediscovered. Apart from being a
small odyssey across two languages, an upsetting evocation of the dramas and joys that such a journey
engenders, Paris-Athènes is the quest of an ―I‖ which is constantly on the run and which only can only be
seized, perhaps be saved, by literature. Alexakis dreams he will be in Athens when death will come and look
for him in Paris: ―I know death is capable of making this journey, he writes, but with some chance I will
already be gone when it arrives. My travelling perhaps does not have any other purpose but to shake it off. I
secretly hope it will get fed up with knocking on my door, that it will think it is useless to take care of
someone who is never there anyway.‖
“Je t’oublierai tous les jours”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
288 pages
The book
The narrator resembles Vassilis Alexakis. He tells his story to a woman he knows well, and whom he needs
to tell it to. He likes to send her news of the world as well as descriptions of more intimate events,
concerning his family and himself, his love life, his children. Little by little, ten years of personal and
general history unravel. It is the marking events making up ten years of his life that the man confides to the
absent-one. He speaks to her softly, as if she could hear him; sometimes he thinks he has seen her, that he
has just passed her in the street. Progressively, we understand that Alexakis is talking to his mother, whom
he has in fact lost. That event was the most important in his life. There was no reason not to continue the
dialogue however, even when the news are not so good. How to explain to his lost mother that her husband,
the narrator‘s father, has also died? This revelation comes at the end, last but one amongst the book‘s
secrets.
“Les mots étrangers”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: September 2002
324 pages
Rights not available for Greece. Rights sold to: USA
(world rights, Autumn Hill), Argentina (Castilian
world rights, Delestante)
The book
Greek by his parents and French through his writing, Vassilis Alexakis has been wandering for almost 30
years from one country and one language to the other. Why did he one day feel the need to learn and write
yet another language, Sango, an obscure idiom spoken only in the Central African Republic? Undoubtedly,
he hopes that this third language will eventually make him young again. He wishes to rediscover the
sensations he felt as a child when the Greek alphabet and grammar intimidated him. But there must also be
another reason to this sudden interest, a more secret and truthful reason which led him to carry out his
project so seriously. The first word that he learns is baba, which means father…
“Contrôle d’identité”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: May 2000
216 pages
The book
In a train heading towards Paris, a traveller wonders who he is and what he was doing in the city of Troyes.
Once arrived at the station Gare de L‘Est, he goes into a café, and watches the customers in a mirror above
the counter: he has no idea which face is his. He goes to the address indicated on his ID papers and finds
Gina, his girlfriend, whom he does not recognize. Together they go to a party thrown by Stabilo Boss,
Paul‘s boss, where they will meet the other characters of this wild and tragic novel.
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“Le coeur de Marguerite”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
336 pages
Rights not available for Greece.
The book
The narrator is in love with Marguerite who is often absent: she has two children and a husband. He is a film
director but dreams of writing a novel. He begins by relating his stormy relationship with Marguerite. He
wonders about the significance of this relationship and about the meaning of words that take up more and
more space in his life. He is passionately interested in an old writer, Eckermann, whose work he knows by
heart. Marguerite begins to feel jealous of the manuscript and of the other Marguerite who is nonetheless her
twin. One day, Eckermann comes to Greece to hold a conference…
“Je t’oublierai tous les jours”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
288 pages
Rights available.
The book
Can a letter represent a sound as Plato suggested that the letter r evoked running water? What is the average
lifespan of a word? Could you write a French novel using only words with foreign origins? Why do great
apes use three different cries to warn of danger?
A host of secondary investigations spring up around the core question: when did men first speak? And what
did they say when they spoke? What was the first word?
The harder a problem is to solve the more it makes us dream… so it takes a novel to tackle it properly. THE
FIRST WORD is, essentially, the story of one man, Miltiadis who was born in Greece and works as a
professor of comparative literature in Paris. Before he dies, he would like to know that word, but sadly he
does die before discovering it. It is his sister, a woman in her sixties, who takes on the challenge of solving
the enigma. She meets scientists in every field who tell her about the human brain, baby language,
chimpanzees and homo sapiens,
Darwin and the creationists, Rousseau and an Egyptian king who had children raised far from the civilised
world to see what language they spoke spontaneously.
Several characters emerge around her: Aliki, her late brother‘s wife; Theano, his daughter; Jean-Christophe,
his life-long friend; Bouvier, his aging mentor, an American professor of linguistics who dies in the arms of
a woman whose language he cannot speak; a Rumanian beggar woman who learns French huddled under
the blanket that is her only shelter; and Audrey, a young deaf girl preparing for a sing-language performance
of Antigone. Apparently our ancestors did a great deal of gesticulating before they started to speak… as we
still do today.
The passion this woman puts into her exhaustive investigations is a gauge of her distress. Because she
cannot fail, she will succeed.
Recent reprints by Vassilis ALEXAKIS published at Stock:
―Avant‖ (2006) and ―La langue maternelle‖ (2006; Prix Médicis 1994). Please contact our foreign rights
department for further information.
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“Le premier mot”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
464 pages
Rights not available for Greece. Rights sold to :
Croatia (Vukovic & Runjic)
The book
Can a letter represent a sound as Plato suggested that the letter r evoked running water? What is the average
lifespan of a word? Could you write a French novel using only words with foreign origins? Why do great
apes use three different cries to warn of danger?
A host of secondary investigations spring up around the core question: when did men first speak? And what
did they say when they spoke? What was the first word?
The harder a problem is to solve the more it makes us dream… so it takes a novel to tackle it properly. THE
FIRST WORD is, essentially, the story of one man, Miltiadis who was born in Greece and works as a
professor of comparative literature in Paris. Before he dies, he would like to know that word, but sadly he
does die before discovering it. It is his sister, a woman in her sixties, who takes on the challenge of solving
the enigma. She meets scientists in every field who tell her about the human brain, baby language,
chimpanzees and homo sapiens,
Darwin and the creationists, Rousseau and an Egyptian king who had children raised far from the civilised
world to see what language they spoke spontaneously.
Several characters emerge around her: Aliki, her late brother‘s wife; Theano, his daughter; Jean-Christophe,
his life-long friend; Bouvier, his aging mentor, an American professor of linguistics who dies in the arms of
a woman whose language he cannot speak; a Rumanian beggar woman who learns French huddled under
the blanket that is her only shelter; and Audrey, a young deaf girl preparing for a sing-language performance
of Antigone. Apparently our ancestors did a great deal of gesticulating before they started to speak… as we
still do today.
The passion this woman puts into her exhaustive investigations is a gauge of her distress. Because she
cannot fail, she will succeed.
“Papa”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights not available for Greece. Rights sold to :
Bulgaria (Nouvelle Université de Bulgarie)
The book
What do you do when a little boy you‘ve never met calls you daddy and says he wants to go home? Is it
possible to carry on feeling jealous about a beloved woman who is now dead? How do you lose your job
because of a free kick played by Michel Platini?
The imaginary situations in these short stories might seem outlandish or strange, perhaps even dreamlike.
And yet they are about the most mundane and fundamental feelings in life: desire, a fear of ageing, aspiring
to the impossible, loneliness. Vassilis Alexakis evokes these emotions in his admirably concise prose which
lends itself as readily to discrete humour as to the most devastating revelations.
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Papa was awarded the short story prize by the Académie Française in 1997.
―All that matters is the atmosphere, which is often absurd and always delightful, in this handful of short
stories shot through with the author‘s exuberant irony. Love, friendship, faithfulness and fantasy form the
links that connect these various short stories. Vassilis Alexakis is having fun. And so are we.‖ Marianne
Payot, L‟Express.
***
Karim AMELLAL
The author
Karim Amellal was born in Paris in 1978, of an Algerian father and a French mother. He spent several years
in Algeria before moving to the suburbs of Paris. He now lives in Paris and lectures at the School of
Political Sciences. In 2005, He published ―Discriminez-moi ! Enquête sur nos inégalités‖ at Flammarion.
His work
“Cités à comparaître”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
177 pages
Rights sold to: Algeria (French language rights)/
Sédia
The book
Silou is in jail. He is told he is one of Ben Laden‘s cousins - a terrorist. Silou is confused. He knows he has
done something wrong. His psychologist told him that to talk about his life would make him feel better, so
he does. He recalls how he grew up and ended up in prison, sentenced for ‗terrorist acts‘. His is the story of
a local boy, a kid from the suburbs with an absent mother; a kid who develops a weakness for dope. Silou
left school because he did not know what school was for; after that, he tried a few tricks and failed. In fact,
he is a swindler; no girl would take him: girls don‘t like guys who have no money and whose eyes aren‘t
blue. Nadia, his ‗star princess‘, who lives in the block of flats opposite, wouldn‘t even look at him. Then
Silou got caught in the dope business. At last he got to see some stars. Then there was the coming down.
Thank God there were some guys prepared to help him. They had their eyes on him. They respected him
and promised another kind of heaven if he agreed to help them. Of course he said yes. It wasn‘t as if he had
a lot of choice. These guys got him into their scams and there was a stickup, a bomb, deaths. He never saw
any of it coming. That‘s how he became a terrorist.
***
Paul ANDREU
The author
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Paul Andreu was born in 1938. An architect and engineer, he has worked for Paris Airports for more than 20
years as chief architect and engineer from as early as 1979. In June 2004, he launched his own agency. La
maison is his first novel..
His work
“La maison”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
120 pages
Rights sold to: China (Shanghai literature), Korea
(Sol).
The book
Had he not, by chance, seen again his childhood house one evening, on the eve of his 60th birthday, Paul
Andreu would have never written this book. He had to go back to this town where he had grown up, to
impose on himself this unplanned trip, for everything to return: smells, sounds, games, rules, and of course,
secrets.
Everyone knows the significance of Paul Andreu as an architect (from the Paris Opera building to the
Maritime Museum in Osaka, from the Oriental Art Center in Shanghai to approximately thirty airports
throughout the world) but here a writer of the intimate and idiosyncratic is being revealed: the best way, no
doubt, to reach to the universal. Paul Andreu‘s La maison is not the one he has always dreamt of building,
but it certainly has built him.
***
Christine ANGOT
The author
Christine Angot was born in 1959. She is the author of numerous literary works (novels, short stories,
plays). She has published at Stock amongst others ―L‘inceste,‖ ―Quitter la ville,‖ and ―Pourquoi le Brésil ?.‖
Her works at Stock
“Les désaxés”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
216 pages
Rights sold to: Russia (Inostranka)
The book
―He hugged and kissed her. She asked him if he loved her. He answered: of course I do. I‘m here. I‘m never
far away. She realized how happy she was to have him in her life, to be with him, to live with him.
Especially when he was away like now. She hated his messiness, the smell of cold cigarette smoke,
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overflowing ashtrays, opening the window during the winter to get rid of the smell. She hated it when he
slept for hours in the morning instead of making love to her. She was happy thinking about him, and the fact
that he loved her and thought of them as being together. Happy to know he existed. But something was
wrong from the beginning. Certain strange signs should have alerted them. But they hadn‘t paid attention to
them, on the contrary, they threw themselves into it, too caught up with being in love.‖
François and Sylvie: a couple. A couple with children, a boy and a girl.
François and Sylvie have lived together for fifteen years. They are both filmmakers. They are in love. There
is something wrong with their love but perhaps they can go on loving each other wrongly forever?
How to undo the wrong kind of love is probably the underlying theme of this novel, also its true nature and
its tragically universal character. We are all out of sync with one another, and as long as we won‘t know
how to live, we won‘t know how to love.
“Pourquoi le Brésil ?”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
198 pages
Rights sold to: The Netherlands (De Arbeiderspers),
Germany (Tropen), Russia (Inostranka)
The book
The essential themes of Christine Angot‘s works (the fear of commitment, the difficulty in communicating
and being with others) take on, in this story of nascent love which is then rejected, unusual force and depth.
She observes with accuracy and courage the intimacy of a growing relationship, with all its turmoil and
passions, its misunderstandings and overwhelming violence.
“L’inceste”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
218 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Tropen), Greece (Kanakis),
Spain (Castilian world rights, Seix Barral), Portugal
(Noticias), China (simplified characters, Sea-Sky),
Italy (Einaudi), Poland (W.A.B.), Czech Republic
(Pavel Mervat), Romania (Leda/Corint)
The book
This is neither an account of nor a novel on incest. It is the very powerful novel of a unique writer who
disturbs because she crosses genres. Incorrect, and judged scandalous, Christine Angot‘s work takes us into
the heart of the writer‘s doubt and anguish.
Also available at Stock:
―Quitter la ville‖ (2000; rights sold to Germany), ―Les autres‖ (2001), ―Normalement‖ followed by ―La
peur du lendemain‖ (2001), ―Peau d’âne‖ (2003), and ―Une partie du coeur‖ (2004). Please contact our
foreign rights department for further information.
***
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Daniel ARSAND
The author
Daniel Arsand was born in Avignon in 1950. He works as an editor at Phébus, where he is in charge of
foreign literature. He is the author of several novels, including: ―La Province des ténèbres,‖ ―En silence,‖
―Lily,‖ ―Ivresses du fils‖ and ―Des amants‖.
His works at Stock
“Des amants”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
174 pages
Rights sold to Italy (Edizioni E/O), USA (Europa
Editions)/English World
The book
1749. Fifteen-year-old Sébastien Faure is tending a flock of goats and ewes when a galloping horse
suddenly appears and throws off its rider. With some dried plants, Sébastien manages to awaken the heavily
injured Balthazar de Créon. The latter promises that from now on, he belongs to the boy. Faithful to his
promise, Balthazar comes back a couple of months later and takes Sébastien to the Créon castle in order to
train him, to make him become the king‘s doctor, and above all, to love him. Balthazar and Sébastien live
their passion hidden from society. At the time, male lovers are insulted, they suffer from violence, and are
killed.
Nevertheless, the fury of the world catches up with them. Rumours are set afloat at Court, where Créon is
seen less and less; he is accused of the worst crimes and his process is merely a matter of time. Balthazar
ends up at the stake, whilst Sébastien has to flee and hide his feelings.
Des amants is a magnificent song about love and humanity. Through this incandescent and passionate love
story, Arsand denounces the intolerance of yesterday‘s and today‘s society towards two men who love one
another.
“Des chevaux noirs”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights available
The book
Jo Harfang is nineteen. He has killed a woman – his aunt – and a few men – strangers, lovers. In jail, like an
angry vengeful god, he sings the lament of a murderer haunted by the spirits of black horses.
Jo Harfang is the last of a strange, corrupt family line, bound to the city of Roanne, to a moor and a
sheepfold. The blood of these ancestors runs in his veins, and the past resurfaces with the sound of pounding
hoofs when he evokes the family saga. Unencumbered with children, wives, feelings, these were free men
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who preferred the company of male lovers and horses: Renaud the bonesetter, Eric the Centaur, Serge the
surgeon. It is with Serge, Jo‘s grand-father, that the scandal of the four black horses broke out – blood in the
sheep pen. A curse then seemed to fall on all the Harfang. In the following generation however, the love that
unites Vincent Harfang to Laure Delage appears to defuse the curse. Jo, their only son, a much loved but
solitary child, prone to violence, grows up in the claustrophobic atmosphere of the family circle formed by
his parents and his aunt. As a teenager, he discovers a passion for horses, learns about his evil ancestors and
unleashes his rage. His will be the destiny of a horseman of the apocalypse, riding around the world,
spreading destruction.
Daniel Arsand‘s novel is a spellbinding family saga, a unique, hallucinated tale - a black comet.
―Ivresses du fils‖ (2004). Please contact our foreign rights department for further information.
***
Justine AUGIER
The author
Born in Paris in 1978, Justine Augier has done humanitarian work involved with development projects in
Afghanistan, amongst other places. She wrote her first novel in Jerusalem where she has been living for a
year.
Her works
“Son absence”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
170 pages
Rights available
The book
The narrator of this book describes a series of life stories. From snippets and traces - texts, words, images he weaves together a whole tale, filling the gaps, the ellipses. His specialty is stories of people who died a
violent, collective death.
He was born in Vienna in 1933, and lives alone with his books and his music. Words are all that allow him
to make sense of a fragmented world.
At the beginning of 1999, a woman comes to see him. Her daughter Aria has disappeared three years ago,
leaving behind a few books, tapes, letters, as well as press cuttings, photographs and a series of dated
notebooks. She was twenty-four years old.
Talks with the young woman‘s mother as well as her partner, and reading the notebooks allow him to
retrace and map out Aria‘s life, form Paris to Venice, to Jerusalem and Afghanistan. Frails and ruptures
appear through the testimonies, as well as evidence of a need to talk about a reality that seemed to escape
her. Aria then turned to literature - in vain.
The narrator‘s own story parallels his account of Aria‘s life. His own disappearance takes form through his
text – writing as a body of absence.
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“En règle avec la nuit”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
224 pages
Rights available
The book
The narrator is a seventy year-old woman. She is married to a major government figure, and lives in the
most peaceful part of the ―region‖. Her nights are ravaged by insomnia.
For many years, a latent war has been dividing and exhausting the population. Everyone lives in fear. The
designated enemy are ―religious activists‖ who set bombs. A few months ago, a young woman who worked
in the ―peace organisation‖ was killed when her car was blown up. The narrator knew her well: she was
profoundly moved by her anger, her commitment and her empathy for others.
Unable to forget the younger woman, she decides to visit her killer in prison. She succeeds in winning his
trust and get him to speak. What may have sparked it all, he admits to her, is that his younger brother died in
an uprising. Poverty too, but mostly the lack of any compensation. And the helping hand offered by the
religious activists.
Next, the narrator meets a writer who fascinates her, and other characters who affected the dead woman‘s
life. During her travels, the war becomes increasingly active. It takes her all the way to the front. Where she
no longer feels fear.
The ―region‖ and its state of pending war has no fixed sense of time and place, referring us back to our
contemporary world, difficult to pin down and decipher. As it fragments and grows darker, it provides
individuals with an echo of their own loneliness and fractured existence.
***
Nan AUROUSSEAU
The author
Born in 1951, the eldest of 6 children, from a father mechanic and engine operator, and a mother laundress
in Montmartre, Nan Aurousseau spent his whole childhood in the twentieth district of Paris. He has
published two novels at Stock: ―Bleu de chauffe‖ in 2005 and ―Du même auteur‖ in 2007. A third novel is
forthcoming in 2009.
His works
“Du même auteur”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Edizioni E/O)
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The book
―My first novel, ―The Regretful Tale of a Travelling Stand-up Comedian,‖ was rather successful. After a
long-lasting misery of years of odd jobs, of living in contempt and economic insecurity, I was seeing light at
the end of the tunnel. Then something happened that wrecked it all. Fucking bad news. No warning. One
morning, the doorbell rings. I quickly put on a shirt and rush to the door where I find my downstairs
neighbour naked, holding a .45. I didn‘t think, I just tried to take it away from her. I should have known
better: the gun went off and the bullet hit me in the leg. Then she commanded me to drive her to the
countryside. She wanted me to pay for ―it‖. But for what? I was mystified. Plus she seemed to have lost her
memory. She was in a pretty sorry state, and I had gotten myself in a bad situation. I had done time in
prison, but since my release I had managed to stay out of trouble. Change of life. Forget about stickups and
concentrate on writing. My first novel was a hit and yet there I was, having to deal with a deranged girl, my
ex girlfriend, the police, my lawyer, and a bunch of thugs, real punks. Unbelievable.‖
―Du même auteur‖ offers the same remarkable energy and exuberant style that established the success of
―Bleu de chauffe.‖ Nan Aurousseau‘s second novel is an astonishing thriller that also constructs a thoughtprovoking reflection on memory-loss and close relationships: beyond the gunplay unravels a beautiful love
story.
“Bleu de chauffe”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: November 2005
180 pages
The book
This work of fiction resembles a true story, which is fair enough since it actually is a true story… or nearly
one. It is a first novel by Nan Aurousseau, craftsman, plumber, brick-layer, ironware merchant, script writer
and filmmaker. As the great Céline used to say: ―Twelve crafts, and as many misfortunes.‖ One day, after he
had just regaled his friends with the tales of his adventures in the world of the building trade, Aurousseau,
who, at that point, was on dole, decided to write it all down. In his unique style, raw and scathing, the highly
skilled worker spares no-one.
Composed according to the rules of the thriller and imbued with a spectacular energy, ―Bleu de chauffe‖ is
unlike any other novel in the French literary landscape.
“Le ciel sur la tête”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: Januray 2009
208 pages
The book
In Entry Prison, on Spring day, the young inmates of Unit 221 openly rebel. At first it was just about
demanding 2 hours to walk and refusing to go back in the cells. But events degenerate quickly and things
turn ugly. Rooms devastated, policemen in hospital and enraged wardens. The mutiny is overcome by a
special brigade and the youths sent to the adult disciplinary quarters. They find themselves in solitary
confinement: A young, determined thief, not lacking idealism; a future Mafiosi able to kill with a pen; a
frightened student who should not be there; a dangerous madman, who escaped the high security quarter.
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Facing them is an assistant director, somewhat overwhelmed and obsessed with a personal vengeance, a
chief warden near retirement and prison educators without any resources.
Where the law of the strongest is king, many try to save their skins, like everywhere else.
Le ciel sur la tête is a dark novel, taking us deep into the violent and crude world of prisons. Through a
vivid description of the prison, he points out the failures of political power, the lack of resources for
educators and the problems of youth in prison. Fierce and without concessions, it is a deeply human book.
“Quand le mal est fait”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: March 2010
240 pages
Rights available
The book
Marcel Tous has a meeting in office 44 in a tower block belonging to a multi-risk insurance company. He
needs to pick up some keys there. His brain is fogged up with alcohol, and full of dark thoughts. Everything
has been going badly since he retired, particularly with his wife who can no longer bear him.
While looking for this wretched office, Marcel Tous quickly ends up in the building‘s basement. Is the
alcohol suddenly giving him hallucinations? Why is there a man in long gloves and grey overalls pushing a
trolley with a body covered in a sheet on it? Why were two old security guards waiting for him so
menacingly? How and when will this nightmare end? The descent into hell has already begun for Marcel
Tous, and it will only have an outcome when he resolves the enigma of a thousand questions, none of which
remain unanswered.
***
Christian AUTHIER
The author
Christian Authier was born in 1969. He has published four novels at Stock: ―Enterrement de vie de garcon‖
in 2004, ―Les liens défaits‖ (awarded the Prix Roger Nimier), ―Une si douce fureur‖ (both in 2006) and
―Une Belle époque‖ (2008).
His work
“Une belle époque”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
The book
298 pages
Rights available
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The narrator of the book has returned to a large provincial town where he lived as a young man. There, from
autumn 1994 till spring 1995, he experienced a form of freedom, the exhilaration of power, as well as an
unforgettable love. It was a beautiful time.
As a recent graduate, he briefly worked for a communication agency before he was employed by the main
regional broadsheet, a paper owned by a family of dishonest notables. One day, an opportunity arises, for
him and his friends to become involved in the political campaign of an ambitious mayor who hopes to bring
his career to the level of national politics. These were times where ambiguity reigned, and communication
and modernization at all cost were widely held as the panacea.
The narrator and his friends were not yet twenty-five, and the future belonged to them. Easy money and the
desire to have fun did the rest. They organized a humanitarian operation, helped staging a theater play,
brought to light the role of a long forgotten second-world war collaborator… They even found a recipe
against unemployment.
They adopted the ambitions of a new generation of politicians who affected strong beliefs to try and mask
an apparent cynicism. Soon, they were swimming in the icy waters of selfish calculation and shady
manipulation.
During these times of uncertainty, the classical elegance and grace of the beautiful Clémence reminded the
narrator that life was worth living. At that point however, he could not imagine a different kind of existence.
“Une si douce fureur”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
142 pages
Rights available
The book
Some people are like the countries where one once lived: long after you left them, their image haunts you.
Valentine is one of those, a blind angel whose presence tears apart your body and your soul. The narrator
met her briefly six years before, and cannot forget. He felt he had missed his chance with the woman of his
life. Then he learns that Valentine has recognized herself as one of the characters in a novel where he told
about the loves and friendships of his youth, and they are brought face to face again. This time, he decides,
he won‘t let her go.
Messages remain unanswered, rendezvous are missed: Valentine keeps aloof. She will not be caught, cannot
be restrained. When at last the narrator holds her in his arms, he thinks he has won. But then come
weariness and boredom, silences, the first signs of an impending defeat - the sweet taste of rage. Valentine‘s
changing moods are but the signs of a deep unease that no love can appease. She seems weary of
everything, ready to disappear at any moment … as if happiness had to be given up before it vanishes. Love
becomes a fading swirl of smoke, a promise of happiness that never materialises and leaves a bitter after
taste.
Following ―Enterrement de vie de garcon‖ and ―Les Liens défaits,‖ Christian Authier continues his
exploration of modern life an its disillusions. This sweet and angry tale of a doomed love story is also a
complex and compelling study of gender relations in today‘s world.
―Enterrement de vie de garçon‖ (2004), ―Les liens défaits‖ (2006) and ―Deuxième séances‖ (2009). Please
contact our foreign rights department for further information.
***
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BAPTISTE-MARREY
The author
Baptiste-Marrey was born in 1928 and has written about ten novels (all connected to one another by more or
less visible threads), essays, and collections of poems.
His work
“Rouge le vin, rouge mon cœur”
Specifications
Series: ―Écrivins‖
70 pages
Rights available
The book
In the great tradition of the painters, photographers, poets and writers of popular Paris – one thinks of Albert
Marquet, Apollinaire, Aragon, Prévert, Hardellet, Doisneau, Robert Giraud – Baptiste-Marrey evokes the
Bercy of his childhood where, each day, next to the large river, he was a spectator of the miracle of wine, of
its commerce and of those who celebrated it or, rather, died of it. Some of these poems are as crystal-clear
as a very fresh sauvignon, sometimes lively, funny and mocking. Others are more serious, resembling wines
that make one ponder, all heavy with moving melancholy and grave beauty, in order to express words and
time that pass by and that flee from us, lost faces, and the Large City that, we know, changes faster than the
heart of a mortal.
***
Pierre-Louis BASSE
The author
Pierre-Louis Basse was born in 1958 in Nantes. A journalist on Europe 1 radio, he lives in Saint-Ouen,
outside of Paris. He is the author of the biography Guy Môquet, Une enfance fusillée published by Stock in
2000. He has also published a trilogy of social novels : Ma ligne 13 (Le Rocher, 2003), Ça va mal finir (Le
Rocher, 2005) and Ma chambre au Triangle d‟Or (Stock, 2006). He also published Séville 82 (Privé, 2006).
His work
“19 SECONDES 83 CENTIÈMES”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: October 2007
132 pages
Rights available
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The book
This is the story of a few seconds that extends to a whole life. Nineteen seconds and eighty-three hundredth
of seconds precisely. It is Wednesday 16th of October 1968, in Mexico. Tommie Smith is the 200 meter
Olympic champion. Tom has been dreaming of this since childhood, and when he climbs on the podium‘s
highest step he raises his black gloved fist. He does this in the company of John Carlos, his companion from
the American team. In the slightly sticky atmosphere of this night of the16 October 1968, this gesture
revolutions the world. It is a silent rebellion that follows a breath-taking performance. This is a gesture that
means to put an end to segregation, the lynching of black people, the humiliation, the buses and housing that
are reserved to whites.
Pierre-Louis Basse was ten. He remembers the race. He remembers the broadcast on television which he
watched with his father, a sport teacher in Nanterre. He also remembers the death of Martin Luther King,
the voice of Joan Baez and the war in Vietnam. He remembers girls in pleated skirts and president
Pompidou. Remembering Tommie Smith mythic race makes Jean-Louis Basse talk about his generation.
“Comme un garçon”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
144 pages
Rights available
The book
His name is Pierre. Pierre Garçon which means boy. ―Like a boy,‖ they used to say in the school
playground in Nanterre. As time went by he shrugged off this name, replacing it with a pseudonym. He has
spent many years looking back over the past, searching for a love he lost when he was twenty. It is only
when he closes his father‘s eyes and mouth for the last time that he becomes brutally aware of time flying
by. Of the need to break away from his youth.
Pierre takes a hotel room for a week so that he can write. The hotel is on the Place Clichy in Paris, as close
as he can get to Lucie‘s face, which has been haunting him since 1979. While a record player plays the
soundtrack of that era Patti Smith, Zappa, Higelin he remembers how he met the young girl and their
group of friends, all politically aware and sharing their taste in films and books. The time of Pierre
Goldman, Mesrine, Sartre, Marchais, Mourousi and Ockrent. The death throes of the Giscard years. The end
of the black and white world. Images springing up from the past are countered with those of today,
illustrating a cynical, materialistic age from which Pierre feels increasingly estranged. In that hotel room a
whole theatre of ghosts, shadows and lights comes to life again as women‘s faces scroll across his computer
screen. In the hope, perhaps, of finding his lost love.
In Like a Boy Pierre-Louis Basse has produced an elegant and melancholy first novel.
***
Christian et Olga BAUDELOT
The author
Christian Baudelot is professor of sociology at the École normale supérieure, and the author of books on
education, social inequalities, suicide and happiness at work. Olga Baudelot is a researcher in pedagogy at
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the INRP (National Institute for pedagogical research). She is a specialist on cultural programs for young
children and heads a comparative study of socialization at nursery schools in France and Japan.
His works at Stock
“Une promenade de santé”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
239 pages
Rights available
The book
Sociologist Christian Baudelot‘s books (Le niveau monte, Allez les filles!, etc.) have become reference texts
throughout the world. For this book however, he completely changes register. Two years ago he watched his
wife Olga, a researcher in her own rights, become dependent on drugs and move progressively and
implacably closer to death. Before her, her mother and grand-mother died of the same incurable kidney
condition. But Christian Baudelot discovers that his wife and him are ‗compatible‘ and decides to give one
of his kidneys to his wife. This book is the dual tale of this experience. ―I did it for myself!‖ Claims the
donor. ―Because I witnessed the suffering of my father-in-law watching his wife wasting away.‖ But this
explanation falls short of the complexity that this book aims to convey. First there is the humorous and
precisely depicted account of the participants‘ journey to the decision of the transplant. What does it mean
to give a part of oneself? Then there is what happens afterward. The obscure emotions that the gift of an
organ, and the expectations set by such a gift create. French medicine is reluctant to engage with the
complexities of transplants involving live donors. It is indeed a complex process of which Christian and
Olga Baudelot, in all their intellectual awareness, provide a wonderful, deeply affecting testimony. Most
crucially, they offer us a poignant and optimistic love story that has a universal appeal.
***
Carine BEAUFILS
The author
Carine Beaufils is twenty-six. She loves literature and detests numbers and figures. Yet for some strange
reason, she became a bank-manager. Then again, she is not asked to make calculations but to invest. When
she is not busy with investments she is a comedian, performing at her work place but also, as an actress, on
the theater stage. Monsieur le Directeur is her first novel: her first step towards literature and away from the
world of numbers.
Her works
“Monsieur le Directeur”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
156 pages
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Rights available
The book
This is a man who has slowly gone up the professional ladder until he became the company‘s finance
Director. The book recounts this trajectory from the point of view of his daughter, watching him transform
from the long-haired, cigarette smoking father wearing overalls into a suit and tie man with a brief-case.
When he coughs however, this feared, respected and powerful director spits blood. A blood that is as red as
the cheap wine he drinks to forget at night.
Monsieur le Directeur is the implacable portrait of a professional world that breaks and crushes men, as well
as the portrait of a paradoxical character, a man who is so consistently different from others that it becomes
funny.
***
Guy BEDOS
The author
Guy Bedos was born in Algeria in 1934. He is the author of, amongst others, ―Envie de jouer‖ (Seuil, 1995),
―Arrêtez le monde, je veux descendre‖ (Cherche Midi, 2003) and a forthcoming novel at Stock in fall 2008.
His work at Stock
“Mémoires d’outre-mère”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
193 pages
Rights available
The book
Obviously, this book does not contain Guy Bedos‘s memoirs. This is not an actor‘s diary, even if, for half a
century, the French society has been most successfully lampooned through this same actor‘s wit. For the
first time, Guy Bedos writes in the first person, the story of the most important woman of his life: his
mother. Their story, their bond. His hatred and his love for her. He is only two or three years old when he
sees his mother hit his father with a hammer. Today, the little boy is seventy years old. And his mother is
still, at the age of ninety, full of life and extremely present. Guy would rather she disappeared before he
does. But he cannot be sure of this. Hence the need to write this book, a book he probably carried inside his
head for a very long time. This book tells everything he never dared to say about his childhood and his
adolescence, about his youth but also his life as a grown-up man. Bedos speaks completely openly in this
book, with no scruples, nor self-indulgence. Those who detest Bedos will love this book as much as those
who love him.
“Le jour et l’heure”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
136 pages
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Rights available
The book
While he is a film maker and not an actor or stand up comedian, the narrator of Le jour et l'heure looks like
Guy Bedos on 2 drops of venom and 2 pinches of arsenic. His success is behind him; he holds this against
the whole world, is not young any longer and thinks about putting an end to his life. His only responsibility
is to choose the day and the time. But he has not taken into account that by leaving these pages expressing
his anger and resentment, his suicidal tendencies and his last loving thoughts, his children will each have the
opportunity to discover them, to read and to respond to them.
For his first novel, as caustic and politically incorrect as could be expected, or at least hoped, Bedos has
chosen to use several voices: a father's, his son's and his daughters'.
Yes this endearing and insufferable character, so terribly lucid about the world around him, near and far,
possesses the tone and force of his author; but also of course, and above all, the real despair of a New York
Jew who was born by accident in Algeria before the last war.
“Plans rapprochés”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
162 pages
Rights available
The book
While he is a film maker and not an actor or stand up comedian, the narrator of Le jour et l'heure looks like
Guy Bedos on 2 drops of venom and 2 pinches of arsenic. His success is behind him; he holds this against
the whole world, is not young any longer and thinks about putting an end to his life. His only responsibility
is to choose the day and the time. But he has not taken into account that by leaving these pages expressing
his anger and resentment, his suicidal tendencies and his last loving thoughts, his children will each have the
opportunity to discover them, to read and to respond to them.
For his first novel, as caustic and politically incorrect as could be expected, or at least hoped, Bedos has
chosen to use several voices: a father's, his son's and his daughters'.
Yes this endearing and insufferable character, so terribly lucid about the world around him, near and far,
possesses the tone and force of his author; but also of course, and above all, the real despair of a New York
Jew who was born by accident in Algeria before the last war.
***
François BERLÉAND
The author
François Berléand was born in Paris in 1952. A leading French actor, he has played in films such as ―Ma
petite enterprise‖ (for which he was awarded the César of the best second role in 2000), ―Mon idole‖ and
―Les Choristes.‖
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His work
“Le fils de l’Homme invisible”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
212 pages
Rights available
The book
―My name is François Berléand; I am almost eleven; I never speak unless asked by an adult; I eat everything
though I harbour no great passion for grated carrots, endives and spinach. […] And I am the invisible man‘s
son.‖
One winter evening in the Berléand family, François‘ father, who had probably been a bit immoderate with
the vodka, declared: ―Anyway. You are the son of the invisible man.‖ Nobody laughed around the table, and
nobody contradicted him. This was the beginning of the ruin of François‘ childhood and adolescence, as he
became befuddled and progressively more destabilised by a bogus secret that was nothing more than a bad
joke.
At the beginning, it is rather amusing to be the son of the invisible man. But as soon as you start believing in
it, it becomes frightening, poignant, and tragic. Thus, little François‘ formative years unravel in this
atmosphere of tragi-comedy where, inexorably, his child‘s fear grows: he is different, probably not normal,
maybe he is kind of brain damaged? Maybe his parents hid this from him to protect him?
For years, interview after interview, François Berléand recounted his strange story, until he had gained
enough distance to write it down.
***
Judith BERNARD
The author
Judith Bernard has a PhD in Literature, Linguistics and Theatre studies. She teaches French in Secondary
schools in the suburbs of Paris. She is also actress and a producer for the theatre. She is a playwright, and
Qui trop embrasse is her first novel.
Her works
“Qui trop embrasse”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
266 pages
Rights available
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The book
When she arrives in Lyon to take up a post as university lecturer, Juliette Canard does not yet know how
ferocious the academic world is. She is pretty in appearance and discourses charmingly, but in such a fierce
environment, she is little more than a sitting duck…
Qui trop embrasse (meaning ―grasp all, loose all‖) is an exploration of the dark side of the academic world;
here, the university is experienced as a corporeal world of sensations and desires. It is a world of sexual
urges, where people hunt each other and devour each other. But if one can laugh at one‘s own demise, then
it becomes less of a personal drama, more of a tragic-comedy: falls are burlesque, bites are grotesque, and
crimes are nothing but crimes on paper.
***
Michel BESNIER
The author
Michel Besnier was born in Cherbourg in 1945. He wrote amongst others ―Le Bateau de marriage‖ (Seuil,
1988) which was adapted to the screen by Jean-Pierre Améris, as well as ―La Roseraie‖ (Fayard, 1997), ―La
Messe des chiens‖ (Stock, 2000) and ―Une Maison n‘est rien‖ (Stock, 2003).
His work
“La vie de ma femme”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
198 pages
Rights available
The book
Anne Brisart, born on the 6 June 1945 in Bregilley, in the province of the Doubs, is the leading character in
Michel Besnier‘s latest novel. To recount one‘s wife‘s life is a risky and delicate task. Thankfully, Anne
kept her letters and diaries, her books and her collections. Gisèle, her mother, a former school mistress, also
kept a journal with the dates and events of her daughter‘s life. The grand-parents; the father who was a
baker; the teaching vocation; the teacher‘s training and the traditions of the École normale; the conflicts
with the father; the first fiancé… Michel Besnier collects together the pieces of a puzzle that constitutes a
fascinating family chronicle.
But the real point of the book is – as with all true novelists – that which escapes him, the underlying mystery
of the ‗stoic and resistant‘ little girl; the secrets of the teenager going through the crisis of growing up; the
exciting experience of the first bal. Curious, troubled or deeply affected, the author is charmed by the energy
and the liveliness of his character. Anne and Michel have been together for forty years. Yet we will know
nothing about their life as a couple. The book stops with their first encounter. This subtle novel is a
declaration of love. It is the portrait of a a young woman in the making, as well as the portrait of an era (the
1950s and 1960s) with its disappearing set of old conventions, its hula-hoops, its scoubidous, the Nouvelle
vague and the colonial wars.
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―La messe des chiens‖ (2000), and ―Une maison n’est rien‖ (2003). Please contact our foreign rights
department for further information.
***
Fayçal BEY
The author
Prince Fayçal Bey was born at the palace of Carthage under the reign of Bey Lamine Ist, his greatgrandfather. He was two years old when the monarchy was abolished by Bourguiba. After having done
research in molecular biology, Fayçal Bey now is a consultant.
His work
“La dernière odalisque”
Specifications
Historical novel
468 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Ullstein), Spain (Plaza y
Janes), Portugal (Platano)
The book
In a book that is both gripping and moving, prince Fayçal Bey tells the story that marked his whole
childhood: that of his grandmother – Safiyé – who was the last odalisque. With wonderful storytelling
powers, Fayçal Bey takes us with him on the search for his roots, in a world that is foreign and yet familiar.
***
Marie BILLETDOUX
The author
Marie Billetdoux, writing under the name Raphaële Billetdoux, is best known for her books Prends garde à
la douceur des choses (Interrallié prize, 1976), Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours (Renaudot prize,
1985) and Chère madame ma fille cadette (1997). In 2006 she first used the name Marie and wrote Un peu
de désir, sinon je meurs then C‟est fou, une fille (2007).
.
His work
“C’est encore moi qui vous écris”
Specifications
Blue Series
1488 pages
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Rights availables
The book
It‘s better to know nothing about this book before reading it, to dive right in, getting immersed in its copious
pages. Any defence or synopsis, any judgement on this work would be a simplification and a pointless
exercise.
It‟s Me Writing Again is not a novel, an essay or a collection of texts, and certainly not a book of
correspondence. It is quite simply proof that, at the beginning of the Twenty First Century, it is still possible
to invent a new literary genre. Here we have forty years (1968 - 2008), daughter of a dramatist, in a
woman‘s life; we meet her as a schoolgirl in the opening lines of the book and we leave her on the last page
as the mother of a twenty-three year-old son and the widow of a man she loved very much. Between these
two stages, we follow Marie-Raphaël: a writer who enjoys success then later fails, a filmmaker, journalist, a
woman in love and a woman pursued in love, a lover and mistress but always free. Free except on one thing:
the constellation of her family.
Every writer may have dreamt of bringing together this sort of material but here every reader, every
individual ends up dreaming of it too.
This is Marie Billetdoux‘s tour de force, having on the one hand kept everything she has written from the
age of seventeen to fifty-seven.
This wealth of material deserved organising, putting together, working through by a writing aware of its
dramatic potential, its rhythm and music, and who also wanted to make each correspondent an actual living
person; to show how all of these characters evolved.
Marie Billetdoux goes to the deepest recesses of the first person singular without any circumlocution of
affectation. No writer will ever have appeared so naked, or so strong.
“Chère Madame ma fille cadette”
Specifications
Blue Series
224 pages
Rights availables
The book
―My father was a playwright. Apart from that, no one can truly say who he was: famous and unknown, poor
and rich, sinister and playful, idle and overworked, triumphant and pitiful, humble and bragging, good and
very evil, passive and violently revolutionary, gentle and aggressive, funny and depressing, full of love and
sometimes spiteful…
Through relentless privacy and secrecy, he managed to cover his tracks even in the multifarious and
unclassifiable body of work he left behind.
So it is still only a fragment of the man that we find in that work: the man who, confronted with my own
struggles with life when I was aged eleven to twenty, was driven to write to me at night, while under the
same roof as me, and to leave his letters under the hairbrush in the bathroom before dawn – and he was a
man of other letters too…
At the time, he himself was not very well. But, when you‘re busy growing up, do you notice a father‘s every
season? When he started to fall silent – in the sense of an author‘s silence – it so happens that I started to
write… I swear I didn‘t know what I was doing. What happened then for me, between the ages of eleven
and twenty, set at a low volume to a tune of fate, was an incomprehensible sleight of hand.‖
Marie Billetdoux
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“Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours”
Specifications
Blue Series
192 pages
Rights availables
The book
A man, a woman, a hotel, the sheets on a bed, the heat of July, the moon and the sea: with these few
elements, Marie Billetdoux builds a novel with all the rigorous constraints of classical tragedy, where three
nights make up an entire life.
My Nights are More Wonderful than Your Days is the story of a meeting. Every meeting has an element of
risk; in the first minute, the first words exchanged, the story has already begun.
Éditions Stock are publishing new editions of Marie Billetdoux‘s work. My Nights are More Wonderful than
Your Days, which won the 1985 Prix Renaudot, was written under the name Raphaële Billetdoux. It came
before the unclassifiable and unforgettable C‘est encore moi qui vous écris (Stock, 2010)
On its publication, Raphaële‘s book inspired Sylvie Genevoix in Madame Figaro to say: ―If it were an
object, here‘s a book we could put straight on display with our treasured ornaments because it is so finely
honed, refined and perceptive. There is insight on every line, poetry on every page.‖
***
Pierre BISIOU
The author
Pierre Bisiou was born in 1965. Enculée is his first novel.
His works
“Enculée”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
156 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Alberto Gaffi), and Spain
(Grijalbo)
The book
A eulogy of love and sodomy, Enculée is a licentious and tender novel.
―You ask me: ‗Do you think I‘m normal? You know I am not. It is not healthy to want to make love in this
way so often. I like to do it this way even more than the normal way. That‘s not normal is it?‘
I feel like telling you that I don‘t give a damn.‖
Young women today remain as fascinated with love as ever. Indeed, they associate it with all kinds of
liberal practices and perversions, transgressions and illicit passions. Hence, for instance, the narrator‘s
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girlfriend, who offers herself to her lover from behind and loves it… But to want to bring love to the most
remote of recesses is to emphasize the paradox of the flesh - as in the ―philosophy in the bedroom‖ where it
hints at the ―end of the affair.‖
Weaving together a crude and matter-of-fact vocabulary with long, intricate sentences that unravel through
brief paragraphs, Enculée treats pornography like a thoughtful exercise fit for dreamers.
***
Véronique BIZOT
The author
Véronique Bizot was born in 1958. She is a journalist and lives in Paris. ―Les sangliers‖ is her first book.
Her work
“Les sangliers”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
140 pages
Rights available
The book
An agency selects potential parents, offering them thirty minutes to convince a virtual child, symbolised by
a light indicator, to come out of the void and accept them as family. A man is sent by his companion to be
treated for depression in a lake side hotel surrounded by mountains. There, he meets an extremely wealthy
neurasthenic manufacturer and immerses himself in an atmosphere of luxurious agony that ends in freezing
waters.
In an isolated house at the edge of a treacherous forest, two men awaits the woman who once loved them.
But Julia does not come alone, and her apparition is most unsettling.
The short stories that compose this collection draw us into an absurdist and threatening universe of hostile
places and tormented, forsaken characters. But the feeling of despair is offset by Véronique Bizot‘s talent at
highlighting the funny side of the most morbid of situations.
***
Jean-Marie BORZEIX
The author
Jean-Marie Borzeix was a journalist for Combat, the Quotidien de Paris, as well as the Nouvelles
littéraires. He has worked successively as literary editor at Editions du Seuil, head of France Culture,
chairman of Télérama, and, until last year, advisor at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. He published
Les carnets d‟un francophone (Editions Bleu autour) in 2006.
His work
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“Jeudi saint”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
192 pages
Rights sold to: Israel (Yad Vashem),
The book
On 6 April 1944, a contingent of German soldiers hunting for the region‘s resistance fighters occupied a
small town of the Limousin (center of France). Sixty years on, the inhabitants of the town remember how
four countrymen from a nearby village were taken hostages and shot to make an example.
Jean-Marie Borzeix knows the story well: he was born in that region at the beginning of the war. But one
event can hide a more complex story. In the course of his inquest, Borzeix discovers how in the same area,
the arrest and deportation of tens of Jews started on the 6 April, on Holy Thursday, and continued through
the whole of Spring 1944.
***
Jean-Éric BOULIN
The author
Jean-Éric Boulin is thirty and comes from Marseilles. ―Supplément au roman national‖ is his first novel. His
second novel is forthcoming in fall 2008.
His work
“Supplément au roman national” – Longlisted for the Prix Goncourt in 2006
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
156 pages
Rights available
The book
Where are the French today? What happened to the very notion of French people? Do we still have a
common destiny, indeed, can we still say ‗we‘?
These topical, controversial questions are at the heart of Jean-Eric Boulin‘s first novel. The nation
progressively appears like a huge combination of casts: invisible people and visible people, the have-nots
and those who have and hold on to the privileges afforded by our society of the spectacle – the arrogant and
blinded cast of the politicians. The cast of the ‗invisibles‘ are too weary to organise themselves, to form a
group that could fight for its rights, to start the class war instead of becoming deluded by trade and
manufactured desires. Kamel Barek and Yann Guillois are amongst those who are tired of the constant
humiliation, the web of lies that the French system has created for its immigrants. The anger that surfaces
has the colors of the misery that rules over the suburbs: red over grey; it is the anger of the children of the
republic, of the françarabe youth, of those who still cherish the memories of the republic‘s past fights. This
is a France who awaits the providential politician. There are no clans, no issue of skin color - only the
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despair, the gap that separates the poor from the rich. With his understanding and love for the forgotten part
of the French nation, Jean-Éric Boulin offers a vivid exploration of the fissure at the heart of today‘s France.
“La question blanche”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
108 pages
Rights available
The book
―Something has happened. I have discovered the colour of my skin, my white skin. I am white and have no
identity. I cannot stop myself from repeating this sentence, like a mantra. I am white and I don‘t have an
identity. It is this lack which caused me to stand back in front of the Arab at the station, to fall apart during
heathen funerals, to decline, as I have been doing, since the death of A. The discomfort at meeting blacks in
the corridor can be explained in the light of this lack. I feel they have a stronger identity than mine. I do not
have any resourcefulness. There is this emptiness inside me and I suppose it is found in every white person.
I feel that I cannot summon anything which would transcend me: nor culture, nor glorious origins, nor
sacredness. Only shame and grief. My existence in the world is decaying. No respectable collective identity
is awaiting me, inside which I can lay down my pain. I don‘t even talk about my French identity, this lie.
Identity comes from the skin. This anachronism is still true and fills me with unease.‖
Very much noticed in autumn 2006 for his first novel Supplément au roman national, Jean-éric Boulin
comes back with an amazing book.
La question blanche is a novel which asks each of us to examine our identity. It is also a magnificent love
story.
***
Nina BOURAOUI
The author
Nina Bouraoui was born in Rennes in 1967. She has written, amongst other books, ―La voyeuse interdite‖
(awarded the Prix Livre Inter in 1991), ―Le jour du séisme,‖ ―Garçon manqué,‖ ―La Vie heureuse,‖ ―Poupée
Bella,‖ ―Mes mauvaises pensées‖ (awarded the Prix Renaudot in 2005), ―Avant les hommes‖ and ―Appelezmoi par mon prénom‖ (please see the ―New Titles‖ section for this last novel).
Her works at Stock
“Avant les hommes”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
96 pages
Rights sold to: Sweden (Elisabeth Grate), Algeria
(French language rights, Sédia), Romania (Nemira)
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The book
It is the story of a boy who lives alone with his mother, in a small semi-detached house on a housing estate.
It is summer, the dangerous season, the time of violence. This is the story of Jeremy, who is bored and
obsessed with Sami. This is the story of a desertion.
There is no hope for love in this book because the body, feverish with waiting and frustration, takes all the
space, fills it with void and vertigo. Youth is a savage state where everything can happen; everything can be
destroyed because it all rests on one force: desire.
For this novel, written after Mes mauvaises pensées (prix Renaudot 2005), Nina Bouraoui chooses a male
narrator. She constructs a fiery, sensual tale that unveils the tumult and fragility of adolescence. From one
book to the next, Nina Bouraoui demonstrates a renewed capacity to enthrall us through the singularity and
captivating power of her writing.
“Mes mauvaises pensées” – Awarded the Prix Renaudot in 2005
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
286 pages
Rights sold to: Sweden (Elisabeth Grate), Algeria
(French and Arab language rights, Sédia), Vietnam
(Phu Nu), Croatia (Algoritam), Korea (Woongjin
Think Big), Norway (Solum), Estonie (Pegasus),
Roumania (Nemira)
The book
―I went to Doctor C. once a week for three years. In the course of each session, I felt I was giving him a
book: it was always about bonds, separations, meetings, and each time I constructed and deconstructed
love‘s works. Mes mauvaises pensées is the tale of this confession; a description of the work we need to put
in learning to live and to love. This is not about therapy, or about myth making; it is a novel because it is a
story told by someone; the story of my family, the story of the best friend, the singer Hervé Guibert, the
story of my two countries. I never left Algeria, I was taken away from it and never said my farewells. I
learnt to become in France: I think I was born twice. Mes mauvaises pensées is also the tale of a return to
the country where I left something that grew in my absence and never ceased to terrify me‖ – Nina
Bouraoui.
“Poupée bella”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
130 pages
Rights sold to: Sweden (Elisabeth Grate)
The book
―Writing and love are part of the same tension, the same joy, the same loss. I am afraid of writing as I am
afraid of loving. Love opens the way to writing, writing comes after love, becomes part of it or undoes it.
Love does not exist on its own just as there is no writing without the other. Without desire, I cannot write. I
am not innocent. I have always fallen for beauty. I write to express this rapture. This book is the story of the
layers of love of which I am made up‖ – Nina Bouraoui.
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“La vie heureuse”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
324 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (WIP)
The book
The portrait of Marie, a disguised portrait of the author herself during her 16th summer, is the unyielding
and unforgiving portrait of a teenager whose childhood is slipping away. The reader will follow her as she
experiences her first feelings of love. She will dare to express them with more beauty, more strength and
more intensity than others. La Vie heureuse is a book about desire, suffused with songs, films and clothing
trends from the eighties: Klaus Nomi is diagnosed with Aids while Sophie Marceau dances to the tracks in
the film La Boum.
“Garçon manqué”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
204 pages
Rights sold to: Sweden (Elisabeth Grate), USA
(English world rights, Nebraska UP), Italy (Le nuove
muse), Portugal (Caleidoscopio)
The book
This is a novel on national identity, on the author‘s own identity: Nina Bouraoui. Algerian or French? How
to live in Algeria with a French mother, culture and language? How to live in France with an Algerian
father? For the first time, Nina Bouraoui unites in this narrative the secrets and confessions of the two
families and the two memories that make up her being. Without ignoring the hatred, silences and fragilities.
This is a necessary and generous work.
“Appelez moi par mon prénom”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
120 pages
Rights sold to: Sweden (Elisabeth Grate)
The book
Seventeen years after La voyeuse interdite, eight years after Garçon manqué, and three years after she
received the prix Renaudot for Mauvaises pensées, Nina Bouraoui radically changes her style and register.
In her youth, she was admired and criticized for the fragmentary, abrupt style of her writing. Today, she
publishes her first classical novel.
It is the story of an encounter between a young female writer and an admiring reader. It recounts their
exchanges, their passion, and the happiness they conquer day by day.
Nina Bouraoui was always an intriguing figure, never to be categorized, never found where she was
supposed to be.
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“Sauvage”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
250 pages
Rights available
The book
―There‘s always the same light, when I look out of my window, way beyond the car park, way beyond the
Grango family‘s house, way beyond the cables from the pylons. There‘s always the same light over Baïnem
Forest which looks as if it‘s catching fire because the sun‘s going down and I wonder where it‘s going to
fall. I don‘t know anything about how planets work and I don‘t want to know because I‘m also included in
that whole cycle, even when I‘m lying in bed, even when I‘m writing in my school book. Everything gets
used up, nothing lasts, since the world‘s very first day. Away in the background, I can hear my mother in the
kitchen, my father on the balcony, my sister in her bedroom constantly singing Sheila‘s latest song, Spacer,
into her Grundig microphone. Each of them is where they should be, or they think they‘re where they should
be, but that‘s an illusion, we‘re all carried along by the stars and their orbits, and when I think about it, it
makes me see white stars in the air swirling like the millions of molecules that make up space, the ones
we‘re all part of. Everything comes undone, everything gets separated and I don‘t know if we ever find the
things we‘ve lost.‖
―It‘s difficult for me to know who I am but it‘s easy to understand why I write. It happened in 1979. On
those Algerian nights when my dreams were no longer the dreams of a child. It happened while I was
waiting for a love who would never come back. It happened as I hoped I would become someone who
would find their place in the world. It happened every evening, when I watched the sun drop behind the
Mitidja plains. I told myself every time that it was taking a part of me with it.
Wild is an account of that year.‖
Nina Bouraoui
. Also available at Stock:
―Le jour du séisme (1999). Please contact our foreign rights department for further information.
***
Michel BRAUDEAU
The author
Michel Braudeau received the Prix Médicis in 1985 for ―Naissance d‘une passion.‖ Chief editor of La
nouvelle revue française since 1999, he is the author of amongst others ―L‘objet perdu de l‘amour,‖ ―Mon
ami Pierrot‖ and ―Pérou‖.
His work
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“L’interprétation des singes”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
680 pages
Rights sold to: Korea (Henamu)
The book
The novel opens with a hunt with dogs and men on motorbikes in the forest of Meudon, in the suburbs of
Paris: Sarastre, a professor who is the head of a clinic that likes to keep itself rather discreet, tracks down
and kills a young Arab and takes away his body. Aliocha, a reporter who is investigating the disappearance
of a number of immigrants witnesses the scene. He learns through Quentin, a colleague of Sarastre, that a
prominent personage named Bayard, the former leader of a disbanded sect, has come under cover to the
clinic to receive a face transplant. As the novel progresses we discover exactly what sort of experiments the
professor undertakes. Circumstances force him to flee to Thailand, taking his daughter Hermione with him.
He is followed by Aliocha and his assistant Damien, who is eighteen years old and happens to be
Hermione‘s boyfriend…
***
Frédéric BRUN
The author
Frédéric Brun was born in Paris in 1960. His first book, Perla, received the prix Goncourt for the first novel
in 2007.
His work
“Le roman de Jean”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
306 pages
Rights available
The book
Le roman de Jean is not a biography but a book written by a son talking about a father who has recently
disappeared. Working from drafts and fragments (photographs, letters, music scores, press reviews), the
author recounts how Jean Brun arrived in Paris before the war, having decided to become an artist.
Using Jean Dréjac as his alias, he started a career in music-halls, and wrote the lyrics for famous songs such
as Le petit vin blanc and Sous le ciel de Paris while working for the most famous performers of his time:
Maurice Chevalier, Gilbert Bécaud, Serge Reggiani and Edith Piaf, for whom he composed the classic
L‘homme à la moto and Les Forains.
He then met Perla, whom he was to love for forty years, and settled down.
Following Perla, a book recounting his mother‘s life, Frédéric Brun evokes with great tenderness, in songs
and images, the character of Jean, his father. His book subtly combines the past, colourful and musical, with
a melancholy present marked by grief. Confronted to the question of the after-death, Brun finds relief in the
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works of the ancient philosophers who wrote about death. It is in this self-reflexive aspect that Le roman de
Jean becomes both an intimate novel about a father, and a book with a universal appeal.
“Perla” – Awarded the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman in 2007
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
116 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Gwynplaine Edizioni)
The book
Even in Literature one does sometimes experience a feeling of urgency: the urgency, for instance, that Perla
must be published straight away. Yet in itself, this book seems anything but hurried. It is an impassioned yet
serene piece of writing. Neither novel, nor diary, nor fictional biography, Perla tells the story of a mother
through a son‘s voice - the story of Perla, who, fifty years ago, was deported to Auschwitz, and is now
dying, having found peace at last.
Interweaving episodes of Perla‘s past and present life, offering a detailed description of his childhood bond
to her, Frédéric Brun constructs the portrait of a person as well as of a universe that are both unique and
universal.
We thus understand the fascination of the author for some of the poets of German Romanticism; we identify
with his joy in entering fatherhood, but also with Perla‘s endless grief; and we realise that the bond that
keeps together this odd couple, Frédéric and his mother, can never be completely severed.
―Like a child entering the school of life, I‘ll always carry my school bag on my back, and it is as if you were
still packing this bag for me. It is a fact: a mother never dies.‖
The force and the scope of Brun‘s book rest on the miraculous equilibrium that his writing creates, between
gentleness and terror, perplexity and marvel.
“Une prière pour Nacha”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights available
The book
With A Prayer for Nacha Frédéric Brun brings to a close a family trilogy which began in 2007 with Perla,
followed in 2008 by Le Roman de Jean.
In this new book he explores memory for its most intimate and evasive details, by looking at his aunt Nacha
who suffers from Alzheimer‘s. While her illness creates more and more gaps, fragmenting her existence to
the point of emptiness, and dehumanising her, he asks what a person becomes when they have no memories.
How do you trace what they have done? Or restore their dignity? What prayer can you say for them?
He then realises that he has not been handed down any family memories by his mother, Perla, nor his aunt,
daughters of Polish Jews.
This throws up many questions: without gestures, stories, rituals and liturgies, can ―Jewish memory‖ be
transmitted through our genes? What faith should you adopt if you are born to a Christian father and a
Jewish mother? Can you find another faith thanks to philosophers such as Maimonide and Spinoza?
Using photographs; official records; birth, marriage and death certificates; and administrative documents, he
begins and investigation into his own origins which takes him to the street‘s of the Marais quarter of Paris,
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the Jewish Memorial, Ribérac, Lyon and all the way to the Polish cemetery in Olkusz. The family tree
gradually takes shape. A whole vanished community reappears. During the course of his journey he writes a
yizkor book, a book of prayer in memory of Nacha, but also for all the members of his family whom he
never knew. He lights a candle for life.
.
***
Caroline CAPOSSELA
The author
Caroline Capossela was born in Marseilles in 1979. She graduated in Literature at the University of Aix-enProvence and now lives and works in Marseilles. Vermicelle au pays des sourds is her first novel.
Her work
“Vermicelle au pays des sourds”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
288 pages
Rights available
The book
Vermicelle is a precocious child. He owes his fast intellectual development partly to an illness that slows
down his growth and induces a continuing physical degeneracy. Vermicelle is both remarkably lucid and
extremely sarcastic. He despises adults, whom he finds corrupt, as well as young people, whom he finds
superficial and ignorant. He is passionately in love with his best friend, Diane. Diane is convinced that
Vermicelle can be cured. This is also what Dr Loise, the psychotherapy specialist, believes. However, the
doctor, in whom Vermicelle confides his disillusions and bitterness, is very concerned by the boy‘s selfdestructive tendencies, and encourages him to open himself to others. Following his advice, Vermicelle
begins a friendship with Dorian, a boy his age who suffers from the same illness. But as soon as Diane
appears to appreciate Dorian‘s company, Vermicelle starts to suspect the new-comer, to see him as a rival,
and he looses all sense of morality and reason.
Vermicelle is an ambiguous character, a likable and disturbing boy of exceptional intelligence. He is a
character who will stay with the reader for a long time, like the heroes of childhood tales that are transmitted
from one generation to the next.
Caroline Capossela‘s novel is a spell-binding journey into the imaginary of a child who refuses to grow up –
a novel with a startling and thought-provoking dénouement.
***
Elisabeth CARLE
The author
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Elisabeth Carle lived in Germany where she taught French at the French Institute in Köln. On her return to
France she worked in luxury retailing before she became a journalist. D‟honneur et d‟eau fraîche is her first
novel.
Her work
“D’honneur et d’eau fraîche”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: April 2007
198 pages
Rights available
The book
At eleven, Elizabeth is convinced that her mother‘s threat will never be carried out: she may well be a rebel,
a wild girl, but she‘ll never be sent to boarding school. This is 1959. Her father has just been posted to
Algeria, and her mother cannot look after her unruly daughter and her three sons by herself.
―Land and honour,‖ such is the motto of the boarding school where Elizabeth will spend seven years away
from her family. She experiences the strict discipline of an institution that lives out of its time: wearing a
uniform, washing in cold water, humiliating and ritualised punishments. She suffers from her mother‘s
coldness, the separation from her brothers, and the anxiety of knowing that her father fights in the Algerian
war. Then the war ends. The soldiers go home. Her father asks her to come back home yet to her own
astonishment, the little girl, now a teenager, declines: she prefers to stay at the boarding school.
At last she is eighteen. She returns home, faces again the indifference of her mother, the military strictness
of her father. She does not know where her place is anymore.
This novel takes us to the heart of life in the schools of the French ‗Légion d‘honneur,‘ these prestigious
institutions created by Napoleon to house the daughters of deserving soldiers.
Forty years later, she recounts her seven years of internment without pathos or complacency. This is a
deeply affecting book, sparing in style, and non judgmental: the book of an author who does not condemn,
yet does not forget.
***
Bernard CHAPUIS
The author
Bernard Chapuis has published several novels at Stock, amongst which ―La vie parlée‖ (2005), awarded the
Prix Roger Nimier, and ―L‘année dernière‖ (1999).
His works at Stock
“Vieux garçon”
Specifications
―Raspberry Series‖
248 pages
Rights available
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The book
His friends call him Paul Newman. His ears stick out; he has a long nose, thick glasses and a slight limp. He
is starting his final year in high school. He likes Greek, Latin, Physics and Classics. He does not like
cultural shopping, communication spaces, forums for trends and four wheelers. He likes Mara‘s shorts,
Claire‘s knickers, Agnès‘s neck and Barberine‘s bottom.
Summer in Paris. He invites his inseparable friends, ‗Furtive the effusive‘, Adham and Agnès, to spend a
few days at his flat during his parents‘ absence, and the foursome transform the place into a stage for
impromptu libertine episodes.
The discovery of a safe, hidden behind a painting in his mother‘s room, initiates a detective‘s investigation
that sets our hero on the search for the mysterious inhabitants of an isolated petrol station, set on a plateau in
the midst of lavender fields. A young Asiatic girl, her mother, a man who reminds him of his own lost
father…
Like Chapuis‘ previous novel ―La Vie parlée,‖ ―Vieux garcon‖ offers an enthralling tale, elegantly written,
full of humor and originality, and built around an absorbing set of characters and comical situations
“La vie parlée” – Awarded the Prix Roger Nimier
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
230 pages
Rights available
The book
Six characters come together to talk about Cormier, a great musician, who has retired and lives now in a
town near a lake. Solange Lasserre, the caretaker, Camille Bonnavent, the old friend, Maurice Forbin, the
manager, Odile Dhue, the daughter, Henri Nicolet, the businessman and Xenia Concessio, the wife. One
after the other, without hesitation and in a conversational tone, they talk about Cormier as souvenirs come
and go. The portrait of the absent becomes more and more precise…
“Le rêve entouré d’eau”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
396 pages
Rights available
The book
A summer‘s night, beside the water. Drinking, smoking. The conversation lingers over specific objects that
have marked various individuals, and have gradually been erased as their lives went on. Lost things, dreams
with no tomorrows. Sometimes the dreams and the long-lost objects do have elements of reality. An Indian
horseman‘s saddle, a bed made of precious wood, a Tuareg sword and a Japanese pine tree loom up out of
oblivion where they were secretly waiting to be remembered.
This might have been inconceivable had the ethnologist Julien Cézat not died in a flying accident in 1996,
and if his friends had not adopted and raised his four children as part of an extended ―clan‖ with a fertile
imagination. Talbeau, a major international lawyer, finances the clan and its expeditions. Valentine, aged
sixty-nine, takes on the role of matriarch for which she was utterly unprepared. She sets off to see an ageing
cousin in Switzerland and reclaim the wooden bed bequeathed to her by her father and snatched from the
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clutches of the Nazis. She comes back with two cats and accompanied by Luca, a beguiling photographer in
his seventies, and Bichot, a professional without a profession. The latter reappears in the Sahara alongside
Julien Cézat‘s son Armand, who has never stopped thinking about a sword given to his father by one of the
last Tuaregs, and buried in the desert for thirty years.
The vague and unfocused Bichot accompanies the reader from the first line to the last, sometimes amusing
and sometimes touching with his bouts of silence and his hesitation. He succeeds in his final aimless
journey, searching for a Japanese pine and a beloved woman.
Bernard Chapuis introduces us to a new clan, and as with La vie parlée and Vieux garçon it is one made
up of unshakeable ties, a reconstituted family and a lifetime‘s friendships. The characters in this clan in A
Dream Surrounded by Water tread a fine line between elegance and humour.
Reprint available at Stock:
―L’année dernière‖ (June 2007). Please contact our foreign rights department for further information.
***
Olivier CHARNEUX
The author
Olivier Charneux was born in 1963 in Charleville-Mézières. He has published three novels with Stock, ―La
grande vie,‖ ―Les dernières volontés‖ and ―Nous vivons des vies héroïques.‖ He also published two
autobiographical novels with Seuil: ―L‘Enfant de la pluie‖ et ―Être un homme.‖ Charneux is also a
playwright.
His work
“Nous vivons des vies héroïques”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
178 pages
Rights available
The book
Here are forty portraits of women and men that the author met by chance or sought out. Olivier Charneux is
a writer and introduces himself as such to these people who do not know him yet agree to confide in him.
Some set out to explore the world and lost part of themselves in the process; others dedicated themselves to,
and grew through their work. Life treated some of them well, while some have suffered greatly. For some,
love has been an illumination for others a tragedy, and for others it is political activism that brought selffulfillment. In each one of them there is energy, courage or madness. The miracle of these encounters is that
they assert the power of life-as-change.
To refuse to give-up, to believe in one‘s dreams; not to be afraid - there is the heroism of these people‘s
journey through life.
The people that Olivier Charneux met are from a diversity of ages and backgrounds, social as well as
religious. They form a portrait of today‘s France. The author merely crossed their path, but his stories
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demonstrate the great care and generous curiosity with which he conducts his exploration of the human
condition.
***
Noëlle CHÂTELET
The author
Noëlle Châtelet has written numerous novels, essays and short stories, amongst which ―Histoire de
bouches,‖ awarded the Prix Goncourt for short stories in 1987. ―La dame en bleu‖ was awarded the Prix
Anna de Noailles de l‟Académie française in 1996.
Her works at Stock
“La petite aux tournesols”
Specifications
206 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Kiepenheuer & Witsch),
Greece (Fytrakis), Korea (Samtoh), Lithuania (Vaga),
The Netherlands (De Geus), Peru (Université Ricardo
Palma), Russia (Slovo), Slovenia (Didakta)
The book
Mathilde is six years old. This year, she goes on vacation alone with her mother. Into this world bursts
Rémi, seven years old. Is it because she saw the unusual passion of her grandmother for Félix, the 80-yearold painter? Mathilde in turn discovers love. Rémi and Mathilde love each other in the absolute way of very
young children. Thus, all of the games become initiatory rituals, all instants are sources of bedazzlement and
sometimes despair. With this novel, which celebrates the burning yellow of sunflowers, Noëlle Châtelet
ends her trilogy of colours, where at three essential moments of her life, the woman is at the same time
surprised and overwhelmed by her own transformations.
“La femme coquelicot”
Specifications
Publication date: June 1997
160 pages
Palma), Russia (Slovo), Slovenia (Didakta)
The book
Marthe is seventy years old. One would think that seventy is no longer an age for falling in love. However,
Marthe, ―La Femme Coquelicot,‖ does fall in love, with Félix, an 80 year-old artist whom she tenderly calls
her ―hero.‖ It is not Platonic but passionate love, where red, the colour of poppies and of desire,
predominates. Marthe‘s quiet, mundane life is turned upside down. Her children and grandchildren learn to
see her differently, no longer as an elderly lady but as a young romantic girl who discovers late in life the
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joy of loving and being loved. Written as delicately as a fairy tale, this novel tackles a subject rarely
mentioned, not to say taboo – love and passion between the elderly.
―La femme coquelicot‖ has been adapted to a television film.
“La dame en bleue”– awarded the Prix Anna de Noailles de l’Académie française 1996
Specifications
140 pages
Palma), Russia (Slovo), Spain (Alba), Slovenia
(Didakta)
The book
Turning fifty-two is not easy, especially for Solange, a beautiful, high-powered Parisian publicist agent, who
has cheerfully devoted her life to the frenzied pace of her profession, her lover, her daughter. Until one day,
while rushing to work, she is intrigued by an old woman dressed in a simple blue crepe dress walking
slowly down a crowded avenue. Curious, Solange matches her stride to that of this lady in Blue and is
gradually drawn into her charismatic, sure-footed calm. Thus begins Solange‘s initiation into the subversive
joys of aging, joys that baffle and dismay everyone around her.
***
Sophie CHÉRER
The author
Sophie Chérer was born in 1961. She is the author of about fifteen children‘s books and four novels. Her
last novel was published at Stock in 2004: L‟enjoliveur.
Her work
“Ma Dolto”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
306 pages
Rights sold to: China (Shanghai Wenhui)
The book
Françoise Dolto was a French doctor and psychoanalyst, famous for her research on childhood. Born in
1908, she died twenty years ago, leaving behind a prolific Work of theoretical texts as well as writings
aimed at the general public. She is mainly known for having modified the vision on childhood and its status
in contemporary society. By retracing Françoise Dolto‘s life, depicting cases of children she treated,
restoring her words, with her childlike soul, Sophie Chérer brings her back very closely for both adults and
children.
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This is what the author says about the book: ―I wanted to tell the life of Françoise Dolto, but not in the style
of a classical biography. I wanted to defend her struggle, but not in the style of a pamphlet. I wanted to talk
about the unconscious to very young people, but not in the style of ‗Psychoanalysis explained to my
daughter.‘ I think that once I had found its title, I realised what this book was going to mean to me.
Since the general public discovered her when she was nearly seventy years old, Françoise Dolto has too
often been represented as an old granny: when appearing on television, her silvery hair was tied up in a
knot, a knitted cloth was draped around her shoulders and she was wearing her glasses wisely at the tip of
her nose. That is why I decided to call this book Ma Dolto, ―My Dolto,‖ because this very Françoise Dolto
is mine, even though I never met her. She is distant yet very close, and it is my subjective, partial,
incomplete vision of her that I deliver in this book, while mumbling her name as much as I proclaim it, as
one sometimes says: my child, my hero, my love.‖
***
Philippe CLAUDEL
The author
Philippe Claudel was born in 1962. He is the author of Les âmes grises, which was awarded the Prix
Renaudot in 2003 and which is translated into thirty languages, and of La petite fille de Monsieur Linh
(Stock, 2005). His novel Le rapport de Brodeck was awarded the Prix Goncourt des lycéens in 2007.
Illustrated with shooting stills, Petite fabrique des rêves et des réalités includes the script of Philippe
Claudel‘s first film, Il y a longtemps que je t‟aime, out in cinemas in France on March 19 2008, starring
Kristin Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein.
His works
“Parle-moi d’amour”
Specifications
―Cream Series‖
116 pages
Please contact our Rights & Licences department for
further information regarding the translation rights
The book
It is midnight. The moment of truth. The moment he and she have chosen to settle their scores. If this
settling of scores is explosive for the couple, it is uncontrollably funny for the spectator.
Philippe Claudel, in his first play, paints an exhilarating scene of our society and reviews all of our excesses:
from children's education to the contempt towards mothers in law, from hypochondria in men to women
undergoing aesthetic surgery, from fake intellectuals to political hypocrisy, from sexual freedom to bad
eating habits. A contemporary comedy.
Parle-moi d‟amour is Philippe Claudel‘s first play. It will be performed from October 3 to December 31 at
the Comédie des Champs-Elysées Theatre in Paris with, in the main parts, Michel Leeb and Caroline Silhol.
“Petite fabrique des rêves et des réalités”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
288 pages
Rights sold to: The Netherlands (De Bezige Bij)
The book
―I often feel that I write novels the way a filmmaker would; it is as if I was making my film, Il y a
longtemps que je t‟aime, the way a writer composes a novel. Today, as a man who relentlessly questions the
world, I believe I have found a kind of equilibrium – like a the tightrope walker – by mixing two forms of
approaches: that of the writer who uses words and locks himself away when he works, and that of the
filmmaker, who mixes sounds, words and movements as well as the effects of the film stock, light and
human matter, and can only work surrounded by people.
Once the shooting was finished, and the film completed, I didn‘t feel I was done with that project.
The desire to explore it anew, to look at it from a distance and with words (those of the writer? Of the
filmmaker?) emerged. I watched all the stills taken while we were filming; I leafed through the script again;
I thought about the set, the actresses, the technicians, the extras, the framing – all kinds of elements that
brought me back to that moment when a film is born, to the anxiety (mine and others‘), the discoveries,
difficulties and wonders of it. In other words, I tried to do a making of of a particular kind. One that would
help me come to terms with that double nature of mine. And I feel that thanks to this little book that can be
read also like a fragmented autobiography, I continue to tighten the rope that I have walked for so long.‖
“Le rapport de Brodeck”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
406 pages
Rights sold to: The Netherlands (De Bezige Bij),
Germany (Rowohlt/Kindler), Greece (Psichogios),
Norway (Cappelens), Romania (Polirom), Israel
(Modan), Denmark (Arvids), Poland (Czytelnik),
Finland (Otava), Sweden (Norstedts), Spain
(Salamandra), Italy (Salani), Japan (Misuzu Shobo),
Korea (Media 2.0), Vietnam (Phu Nu), Estonia
(Pegasus), Serbia (Laguna), Portugal (ASA II),
Algeria (French language rights, Sédia), China
(simplified characters, Shanghai Translation), UK
(Quercus/MacLehose Press), USA (Doubleday/Nan
A. Talese), Catalonia (La Magrana), Estonia
(Pegasus) and Ecus (Taiwan).
The book
Brodeck‘s job is not about telling stories. He writes short notices on the state of the flora and trees, the
seasons and the game, the snow and rain – an insignificant activity for the administration that employs him.
―What we want from you is not a novel‖ says Rudi Gott, the blacksmith, ―you just have to say your bit, as
you do in your reports.‖
Brodeck agrees to at least try. Say things the way he does in his reports then, since he does not know how to
express himself otherwise. The condition, however, is that everybody, all the inhabitants of the village and
neighboring hamlets, approve of this.
Brodeck is extremely conscientious and will hide nothing of what he has seen, of the truth he does not yet
know. Even if this truth is bad news.
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The mayor of the village is irate. ―What is the use of this Brodeck? Have you not seen enough dead during
the war? What looks more like a corpse than another corpse, can you tell me? Your task is to take note of all
the facts, but leave out insignificant details. Remember that you will be read by people who hold important
posts in the capital. I can see that you doubt it, but yes, you will be read …‖
Brodeck takes the mayor‘s warning into account. Not to stray, not to look for that which is not there, or not
there anymore. And yet. Brodeck will do exactly the opposite.
“Le monde sans les enfants et autres histoires”
Specifications
192 pages
Germany (Rowohlt), Italy (Salani), Korea (Media 2.0),
Japan (Misuzu Shobo), Vietnam (Phu Nu)
The book
Today‘s children are not easily fooled, but they remain children all the same, with the anxieties, naivety,
questions and hopes of children. The stories contained in this book are often funny and comical, but they
open a poetic and sometimes philosophical window onto the world. As the words unravel, we meet a stream
of kind-hearted characters: clumsy fairies, worries-sweepers, nightmare hunters, little girls who invent
vaccines to make people happy, and many others. Through them, and with his usual sensibility, Philippe
Claudel addresses delicate subjects and taboos – neglect, illness, war, death, difference, as well as all these
small fears and complexes one has to get over in order to grow up.
These are stories to share with the rest of the family; an invitation to start a dialogue, to discuss with adults
once the book is finished. Indeed, adults forget too easily the children they have been, and their
responsibility towards generations to come. Pierre Koppe‘s superb illustrations accompany the text of this
affecting book destined to all.
“La petite fille de Monsieur Linh”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
140 pages
Rights sold to: Portugal (ASA), The Netherlands (De
Bezige Bij), Germany (Kindler), Italy (Ponte alle
Grazie), Spain (Salamandra), Catalonia (La Magrana),
Poland (Czytelnik), Japan (Misuzu Shobo), Turkey
(Dogan), Taiwan (Chinese complex characters, Ecus),
Korea (Media 2.0.), Vietnam (Phu Nu), Greece
(Psichogios), Denmark (Arvids), Finland (Otava),
Sweden (Norstedts), Thailand (Sanskrit), China
(Chinese simplified characters, Nanjing Yilin),
Bulgaria (Prosorets), UK (Quercus), Galicia
(Barbantesa), Israel (Modan), Czech Republic
(Paseka)
The book
Mr Linh is an old man. He left his war-devastated village with only a small suitcase containing a few worn
clothes, a yellowing photograph, and a handful of earth from his home land. In his arms, he cradles a newborn baby. Sang Diû‘s parents are dead, and Mr Linh has decided to take her, his grand-daughter, with him.
After a long boat journey, they arrive in a cold grey city crowded with hundreds of refugees. Mr Linh has
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lost everything. From now on, he has to share a room with other displaced people, people who mock him for
his clumsiness. In this town where everyone ignores everyone else, he nevertheless finds a friend in Mr
Bark, a fat, solitary man. They do not speak the same language, yet they understand the musicality of words
and the subtle language of gestures. Mr Linh is a pure heart, wounded by wars and losses, who lives only for
his grand-daughter.
Philippe Claudel treats his characters with graceful respect. His book celebrates universal themes friendship, compassion - with the elegance and transparency of the great classics of literature.
“Les âmes grises”: awarded the Prix Renaudot in 2003 and the Grand Prix Littéraire des
lectrices de Elle in 2004
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
288 pages
Germany (Rowohlt), Italy (Ponte alle Grazie),
Portugal (ASA), Spain (Salamandra), Catalonia (La
Magrana), UK (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), USA
(Knopf), Croatia (Profil), Serbia-Montenegro (AlfaNarodna), Taiwan (Chinese complex characters,
Ecus), Korea (Media 2.0), Sweden (Norstedts),
Finland (Otava), Norway (Cappelens), Denmark
(Arvids), Turkey (Dogan), Japan (Misuzu Shobo),
Greece (Psychogios), Israel (Keter), Poland
(Czytelnik), Russia (Olma), Vietnam (Alpha-Books),
Algeria (French and Arab language rights, Sédia),
Georgia (Agora), Iceland (Bjartur), Bulgaria
(Prosorets), Estonia (Pegasus)
The book
A young girl is found murdered on the frozen banks of an ice-cold stream. It is winter, 1917, during World
War I. A time of methodical slaughter. The novel never shows it, but it‘s there – a hidden, monstrous
presence. Whether it is little girls who are killed or thousands of men, nothing is more tragically human.
Who killed Belle de jour? The local prosecutor – a cold and solitary man – the small deserter from Brittany
or the marauder who‘s passing through town? Years later, the inspector who had investigated the murder
tells the stories of these interrupted lives: Belle de jour, Lysia the schoolteacher, the doctor of the poor who
died of hunger, the burden of the little Breton… He writes awkwardly, with fear and respect. He, too, has a
secret. These ―grey souls‖ are the characters of the novel, at once great and contemptible. Described with
painful intensity they evolve in a society undergoing great change, with its class connivance, its
cowardliness and its shame.
―Les âmes grises‖ has been adapted to the wide screen and is currently available on DVD.
“Le bruit des trousseaux”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
96 pages
Rights sold to: Portugal (ASA), Germany
(Friedenauer), The Netherlands (De Bezige Bij)
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The book
Every week, and for 11 years, Philippe Claudel went to prisons to give French lessons to men and women,
either sentenced or waiting to be, and who had committed relatively serious crimes. Short texts were the
result of these encounters, scenes linked to one another, like an attempt to expose a place always hidden
behind sealed doors. A place that haunts us and where most of us never go. Philippe Claudel lets us listen to
the words of the prisoners and guards, the sounds of keys and locks. He makes no judgement. Inside prisons
there are mediocre people and perverted people, but there are also admirable and very human people.
“J’abandonne” – Prix Roman France Télévision 2000
Specifications
―Blue Series‖ – Reprint
120 pages
Germany (Rowohlt), Italy (Ponte Alle Grazie),
Slovakia (Pectus), Portugal (ASA)
The book
The narrator is a young widower who lives alone with his twenty months old daughter. He is a psychologist,
working in a hospital where his role is to tell families about the impending death of a loved one, and
convince them to let the hospital remove organs from the body. Today however, he does not want to be a
vulture anymore, jumping on corpses to tear at it like a hyena. His job disgusts him. In fact, everything
disgusts him: the stupidity and hatred of his colleagues, the vulgarity, the violence and the ugliness of a
world he feels he does not belong to anymore.
It is in the ‗confessional‘, the small room where the ‗hyenas‘ operate, in an extremely tense atmosphere, that
he will slowly find the strength to live again. Deeply moved by the example of a mother who has just heard
about the death of her seventeen years old daughter, he understands he cannot abandon his own daughter, so
innocent and fragile. The tale of the wounded man, close to collapse, is thus interwoven with the
expressions of care and affection of a father who refuses to bequest a world of aches and ruins to his
daughter. ―J‘abandonne‖ is a cry of angst in the face of a de-humanised society, a vision without
complacency of the cowardice and lies of our times. But compassion wins over and this affecting book
concludes with gestures and words that spell kindness and hope. ―J‘abandonne‖ was awarded the prix
Roman France-Télévision in 2000. It was first published by Balland Publishing House.
“Meuse l’oubli”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖ – Reprint
162 pages
Germany (Logo), Korea (Media 2.0)
The book
Paule is dead and from one bar to the next, her inconsolable lover weeps over their story. Of his beautiful
Flemish girl, he has only kept three letters, read a hundred times, and an angora jumper that still holds her
smell. He leaves his job, flees to a small town on the bank of the Meuse river where he settles. Far away
from the places that saw him stagger along with pain and too many glasses of Rhine wine, he starts to write.
Where do those who leave us go if not in our memory and in our writing? In his notebooks, he retrieves the
laughter and the kisses of the tender Paule, as well as her face when marked by illness. A bad memory also
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resurfaces: that of the woman who could not love him, the mother - ‗a whore and proud to be one‘. In which
country, in whose arms does she now lay?
One cannot live with the dead however. The angora jumper loses the traces of perfume while the narrator
lets himself drift with the memory of Paule‘s words as if the currents of the Meuse river were carrying him
away. Pain slowly disappears and the striking beauty of Reine, whose flamboyant red hair makes heads turn
in the small city, is a call for life and hope.
Philippe Claudel‘s first novel was published in 1999 by Balland Publishing House. The themes that remain
at the heart of his oeuvre are already present: loss and grieving, the distant war, human tragedy and
compassion. The poetic breadth of the text also pays homage to literature.
“L’enquête”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
288 pages
Poland (Czytelnik), Germany (Rowohlty Verlag),
Denmark (Avids Ferlag), Greece (Ed. Psychogios),
Island (Bjartur Bokaforlag), Italy (Adraino Salani),
Norway (J.W. Cappelens Forlag), Portugal (Porto
editora), Sweden (Norstedts), UK (Quercus
Publisher), Catalonia (RBA), Spain (Salamandra),
USA (Nan Talese).²
Under option in several countries. Please report to our
The book
Paule is dead and from one bar to the next, her inconsolable lover weeps over their story. Of his beautiful
Flemish girl, he has only kept three letters, read a hundred times, and an angora jumper that still holds her
smell. He leaves his job, flees to a small town on the bank of the Meuse river where he settles. Far away
from the places that saw him stagger along with pain and too many glasses of Rhine wine, he starts to write.
Where do those who leave us go if not in our memory and in our writing? In his notebooks, he retrieves the
laughter and the kisses of the tender Paule, as well as her face when marked by illness. A bad memory also
resurfaces: that of the woman who could not love him, the mother - ‗a whore and proud to be one‘. In which
country, in whose arms does she now lay?
One cannot live with the dead however. The angora jumper loses the traces of perfume while the narrator
lets himself drift with the memory of Paule‘s words as if the currents of the Meuse river were carrying him
away. Pain slowly disappears and the striking beauty of Reine, whose flamboyant red hair makes heads turn
in the small city, is a call for life and hope.
Philippe Claudel‘s first novel was published in 1999 by Balland Publishing House. The themes that remain
at the heart of his oeuvre are already present: loss and grieving, the distant war, human tragedy and
compassion. The poetic breadth of the text also pays homage to literature.
Also available at Stock
―Quelques-uns des cent regrets‖ (2007, rights sold to: The Netherlands (De Bezige Bij). Please contact our
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***
Catherine CLÉMENT
The author
Philosopher and novelist, Catherine Clément also trained in psychoanalysis. She has published about forty
works: essays on anthropology and psychoanalysis as well as novels which have proved extremely
successful in France and abroad : ―La Sultane,‖ ―La Senora,‖ ―Pour l‘amour de l‘Inde,‖ ―Le Voyage de
Théo‖...
Her work at Stock
“Les derniers jours de la déesse”
Specifications
288 pages
Rights sold to: Portugal (Asa)
The book
In India, she is a goddess. One calls her Amma, the Mother. Today, she has decided to die, to abandon her
aging body, to leave the ashram and her followers and to join her beloved, her divine half. But just before
the official audience, a young photographer approaches the Mother, of whom he has to make a portrait. He
is full of questions and of fury, and he knows a lot about it on the lady who, formerly , on stage, was called
Rachel Ephraïm. The next day, he has mysteriously disappeared , and the goddess is not any more.
On Coromandel's coast, in the City where the divine lovers lived during twenty years, one worships their
double grave, that of a single God united in two persons, male and female. Somebody — a voice — leads
the inquiry and questions those who knew the Mother: her followers, her faithful companions, the consul
general of France, the Pandit, her enemies, her family, the witnesses, friendly or hostile, of her official or
secret life. In the course of conversations appears the fascinating portrait of an exceptional woman. Who
was really Rachel Ephraïm? How did this woman, a Jew from Egypt, a former opera singer with a troubled
life, become a goddess in India? Why is her death surrounded with shadows? From Villanour to Delhi,
through Darjeeling, Haïfa in Israel and the Valley of the Loire in France, the inquiry brings many surprises.
It takes us deep into the mystery of Southern India, this mystic and sensual country, and leaves us dazzled
by the beauty of its rice fields and the intensity of its cities.
“Mémoire”
Specifications
580 pages
Rights availables
The book
Everybody thinks they know Catherine Clément. Everybody knows about her passion for India, her
philosophical novels, her years as a teacher and as a journalist, her missions for the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs which took her, together with her ambassador partner, to Vienna, New Delhi and Africa, and her
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mingling with the psychoanalytical circles… but this is not only a disordered but also an incomplete and
over-simplistic summary.
Through her rare autobiographical writings (for example Cherche Midi, Stock 2000), her readers have
learned about her childhood as a French Jewish girl, but never before the publication of this book –certainly
the most important of her life-, has Catherine Clément revealed so many secrets, unfolded memories and
deep mysteries. From her fraternal complicity to her eternal friendships, we discover her as a young teacher,
as an active member of the communist party, or close to certain politicians amongst whom two presidents:
Jacques Chirac and François Mitterrand. One reads with particular emotion the portraits she paints of her
mentors, Jankélévitch, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss or those of thinkers like Roland Barthes or Jean-Paul Sartre.
This book could have been a mere description of the exceptional career of an intellectual. Yet, thanks to
Catherine‘s talent as an author, her freedom of expression, her humour, her tenderness and her total lack of
complacency, it has become life itself. A life of somebody who has accomplished nearly everything, without
even noticing it herself and who keeps within her a deep sense of love, friendship and justice which we are
crucially lacking in our times.
***
Collectif QUI FAIT LA FRANCE ?
The authors
All members of the group Qui fait la France? are in their twenties and thirties. They are born in France or in
Northern Africa and live and work near Paris. Most of them have already published books with different
publishers.
Their work at Stock
“Chroniques d’une société annoncée”
Specifications
276 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Stampa Alternativa)
The book
Qui fait la France? is a group born by chance, yet out of a common sense of anger. Whether they are
already published authors or complete beginners, the members of this group share a preference for a
literature of the real, socially minded and militant, that fights for an insightful awareness of territories and
people that have been forgotten, and, more generally, for all those that do not have a voice where the fate of
the country is concerned.
It was on the occasion of a televised programme that the idea of moving away from isolated writing and
founding a group came up, and took the form of this project – an intellectual project as well as a legally
established association of individuals.
The ten stories included in the collection speak of a wounded France: through the story of a youth beaten up
at a police station (Mohammed Razane); the evocation of dreams growing in the oppressive environment of
a housing estate (Mabrouck Rachedi); the ups and downs of those who are trying for ‗integration‘ (Khalid
El Bahji, Habiba Mahany); an African point of view on the capitalist mirage (Dembo Goumane). And also,
of course: the need to escape and find refuge in dream lands (Jean-Eric Boulin); the myth of ‗going back
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home‘ (Thomté Ryam); the virtualities of mythomania (Faïza Guène); the impossibility to forget past
sufferings (Karim Amellal, Samir Abdel).
***
Anne CUNÉO
The author
Born in Paris and now sharing her time between Geneva and Zurich, Anne Cuneo is a journalist and a for
the Swiss television. She wrote autobiographical stories and several novels that were published in
Switzerland, France, Germany and The Netherlands. Her novel ―Le trajet d‘une rivière‖ was awarded the
Prix des libraires in 1995.
Her work at Stock
“Le maître de Garamond”
Specifications
Historical novel
503 pages
Rights available
The book
December 24, 1534, Place Maubert in Paris: Antoine Augereau has been accused of heresy. He is hanged,
and his body and books are burned. A humanist, an erudite and a theologian, Antoine Augereau was also a
great printer, publisher and engraver of typographic letters. The publication of Miroir de l‘âme by
Marguerite de Navarre will cost him his life. The Sorbonne, ferocious guardian of an inflexible orthodoxy,
disapproves of the ideas of François the Ist‘s sister, but cannot condemn her. Antoine Augereau will pay in
her place.
Told by the most famous of his disciples, this is the fascinating and moving story of a humanist ready to die
for his ideas.
***
Didier DECOIN
The author
Didier Decoin was born in 1945 in the Parisian suburb Boulogne Billancourt. Awarded the Prix Goncourt
for ―John L‘enfer‖ (Seuil, 1977), he is the author of twenty works amongst which ―Jésus, le Dieu qui riait‖
published at Stock in 1999.
His work at Stock
“Henri ou Henry le roman de mon père”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
256 pages
Rights available
The book
At the age of eight, to help his family who live in a garret of the Saint-Gervais district, Henri Decoin leaves
school and becomes a delivery boy. Forty years later, in September 1937, he arrives in Hollywood on 21year-old Danielle Darrieux‘s arm. In the interval, he has been a furrier apprentice, a water-polo national
champion, and a sport journalist. In 1917, decorated with the Croix de guerre and a member of the Légion
d‘honneur for his conduct as an officer during the war, he publishes his first, autobiographical novel Jeph, le
roman d‟un As, followed ten years later with Flambeau dans la nuit. It is thanks to traveling shows that
teenager Decoin discovered the magic of cinema. From 1933 to 1964 he completes around forty films,
working with the greatest actors, from Danielle Darrieux to Jean Gabin and Jean Marais. It is this
exceptional life-story that his son, Didier, recounts in this book. How Henri became Henry, the director of
Premier rendez-vous (First Affair) and La vérité sur Bébé Donge (The Truth about Bébé Donge) amongst
other great hits of the cinema. This is an affecting and sensitive portrayal of a remarkable man by an equally
remarkable novelist.
“Une anglaise à bicyclette”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
384 pages
Rights available
The book
It all starts with a massacre of Native Americans in South Dakota in 1890. Jayson Flannery, an English
photographer who misses his homeland, takes in a three year-old girl whose mother was killed in the
massacre. Of course he means to leave Emily in an orphanage as he will soon be on a liner heading for
England, but he will not be travelling alone: he decides to take Emily back from the nuns who have taken
her under their wing.
The two of them end up in the Yorkshire manor house where Jayson has lived all his life. Emily grows up,
goes to school and learns to read. Everyone in the village has their own ideas and questions to ask about her.
Did Jayson adopt her or kidnap her? Will someone come looking for her one day? A policeman makes his
own enquiries, stubbornly, obstinately searching for Emily‘s true origins. Jayson soon realises that if he
wants to give his Native American Emily a true identity and therefore some papers and therefore a social
standing, he has no choice but to marry her. It will be an impressive wedding and will put an end to all
suspicions, including the policeman‘s.
Emily longed for a horse but among her wedding presents she finds a bicycle. Jayson could never have
guessed how much this gift would change Emily‘s fate. At first she bicycles for hours on end, then days,
then whole nights. At the furthest extent of her travels, she makes an extraordinary discovery: two little girls
in a far-off village claim they commune with fairies on the banks of a river. Everyone wants to believe
them, not least Emily. The girls‘ father, also a photographer, asks his children for photographic proof of
their claims. The girls do as they are told and bring back five astonishing images. The village where Emily
grew up had its doubts about her true identity, now all of England will be divided into believers and nonbelievers on the subject of fairies. In an England embarking on the wild years that followed the First World
War lives an ageing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who takes comfort in a passionate obsession with spiritualism.
This fantastical story about fairies comes at the perfect time in his life. He believes it utterly and completely,
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will make it his last great cause, and will take Emily with him on his mission to protect the little girls‘ truth
and their lies.
Sadly, there is always a truth but sometimes it is better kept quiet.
From Abraham de Brooklyn to John l‟Enfer, from La femme de chambre du Titanic to Est-ce ainsi que les
femmes meurent?, Didier Decoin‘s readers are always plunged headlong into a storybook world that is
sometimes wild and always universal. This inevitably reductive summary of his latest book manages to
convey the fact that English Girl on a Bicycle harbours a thousand other secrets and a thousand other riches.
We are a whole century further on, and yet today we find the same creatures, the same illusions and the
same torments.
***
Marina DÉDÉYAN
The author
Marina Dédéyan was born in 1969 and is of Russian and Armenian origins. ―Moi, Constance, Princesse
d‘Antioche‖ is her first novel.
Her work at Stock
“Moi, Constance, Princesse d’Antioche”
Specifications
Historical novel
367 pages
Rights sold to: Portugal (Aletheia)
The book
Winter 1130. The north-west of Syria. Constance is a small child when she discovers the body of her father,
Bohémond de Hauteville, killed and beheaded by the Saracens. She has become the unique heir of the
Principality of Antioch. Her mother Alice , the regent, schemes endlessly to oust this child she hates and
seize the power. Bullied by some, ignored by others, the little girl can only count on the affection of Leïla,
the mysterious guardian of the hammam. Constance‘s life is shattered when at the age of nine she is secretly
married to a Knight from Poitou almost four times her age. In the midst of palace intrigues and the terrible
wars that tear apart the middle-east at the time of the crusades – Turkish invasions, Byzantine claims over
land, inner fights amongst the Franks –Constance fights her own battles to accomplish her destiny as a
woman and as a princess.
Written in the first person, ―Moi, Constance, Princesse d‘Antioche‖ is the story of an exceptional destiny,
unravelling in the colourful and sensual world of the Frankish knights of the Levant.
***
Olivier DESCOSSE
The author
A former barrister, Olivier Descosse now works as a full time script-writer and novelist.
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His works at Stock
“Le pacte rouge”
Specifications:
Thriller
454 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Blanvalet), Romania(SC
AG de publ Tritonic)
The book
A bomb explodes in the heart of Marseille, and three mutilated bodies are found. But no-one claims this act
of terrorism, and the investigation is at a stand-still. Chief police inspector Paul Cabrera is sent to work with
the anti-terrorist cell. Cabrera is from Marseille, he knows the city‘s street-life, its codes and its informers.
In addition, his uncle is amongst the victims. Guided by his instinct but motivated by his need for revenge,
Cabrera unravels a complex net of terror. He is helped by a barrister, a woman of doubtful motivations who
nevertheless provides him with precious information. Meanwhile, a young judge makes a series of
apparently unrelated discoveries. From Marseille to Corsica, London and Pakistan, connections are made
and three investigations become entangled. As the past resurfaces, two worlds come into conflict. Cabrera
conducts his latest investigation in his usual ruffian‘s fashion, making his way through a world dominated
by violence and death.
“Le couloir de la pieuvre”
Specifications
Thriller
424 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Blanvalet)
The book
On the beach at Porquerolles, a drowned woman turns up. Paul Cabrera, a cop from Marseilles who could
be taken for a criminal is investigating… without a mandate. He crosses paths with Meredith O‘Brien, an
American psychoanalyst and the victim‘s sister. The ensuing wild goose chase takes the reader from the
ghettos of Marseilles to the luxurious backrooms of political power, from Tahiti to the abandoned sandbordered atolls. The object of the hunt, the body, has been stolen from the morgue but its secrets are
unravelling…
“Miroir de sang”
Specifications
Thriller
428 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Blanvalet)
The book
The horribly mutilated corpse of a child is discovered among the cliffs overlooking the coast of Marseille.
Two unconventional cops are on the case: Riad Kellal, a Crime Squad detective with an Algerian
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background, and tough-guy cop Paul Cabrera, in charge of the north sector. Separately working on the same
case, each man has a personal reason for getting to the murderer first. From Marseille to Lyon through the
Camargue, from the underworld of the Hell‘s Angels gang to the underworld of gypsies, the trails run
parallel while another crime is in preparation. Paul Cabrera‘s second case, Miroir de sang, plunges the
reader into the depths of human madness.
***
Yves DESMAZES
The author
Yves Desmazes is a police officer who started his career in Paris and is now in post at the police headquarters of the Hérault (South East region of France). Folies meurtrières is his second novel.
His works
“Folies meurtrières”
Specifications
―Thriller Series‖
408 pages
Rights available
The book
The folly called Château des Perrières, which stands near Montpellier, appears to be the site of a strange
malediction. Its new owners, a wealthy Canadian business woman and a sulfurous TV-evangelist, gave a
party to celebrate the end of the restoration work, and found one of their guest impaled on a halberd, one
hand clutching a letter of the alphabet. Kévin Normand, a police lieutenant from the crime squad in
Montpellier, is put in charge of the inquest. Interestingly, Kevin is also one of the bishop‘s deacons. Beset
by uncertainties and suspicions, Kévin finds himself doubting the judiciary system, his superiors, and even
the Catholic hierarchy. In order to solve the puzzle, he has to go back in time, to the troubled era of the
French revolution.
***
Ya DING
The author
Ya Ding is a Francophone author with Chinese origins. Before the publication of ―Le Sorgho Rouge‖ he had
established himself as one of the best translators of classics of French literature in Chinese (including,
amongst others, ―Le spleen de Paris‖ by Baudelaire and Flaubert‘s ―Correspondance‖).
Originally written in French, ―Le sorgho rouge‖ is his first book. It was published in 1987 and has since
become an international best-seller.
His work at Stock
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“Le Sorgho Rouge”
Specifications
Publication date: April 2006 (reprint)
264 pages
Rights sold to: Spain (Destino)
The book
Liang Li, the hero of this story, is only nine when he becomes a witness to one of the greatest upheaval in
Chinese history: The Cultural Revolution. The Li family settles in a small village in the North of the country
and discovers the reality of rural life: poverty, a feudal society and the persistence of old superstitions… The
great Maoist revolution has been launched, but Liang, who dreams of becoming one of its heroes, soon
looses all hope: incriminating documents are found and his parents are sent to prison. Liang is left to wander
in the fields of red Sorgho with his four-year-old sister…
Ya Ding‘s best seller is a magnificent novel and an essential read.
***
Boucabar Boris DIOP
The author
Boucabar Boris Diop is a novelist and a journalist from Senegal. In 1997, he published ―Le cavalier et son
ombre‖ at Stock.
His work at Stock
“Murambi – Le livre des ossements”
Specifications
236 pages
Rights sold to: Spain (Castilian world rights,
Casiopea), Senegal (Papyrus), Italy (E/O Edizioni),
USA (English world rights, Indiana UP)
The book
How does one tell the horror of Rwanda‘s genocide? Boubacar Boris Diop brings us one of the first
historical novels dedicated to Rwanda‘s most painful truth. Retracing the atrocities that took place from
April to July 1994, which resulted in one million Tutsi deaths, the book‘s narrative offers voices that are
both Tutsi and Hutu. At the center of this work lives Cornelius Uvimana, a man who returns to Murambi
after 25 years of exile only to find a country haunted by its dead and its living. This poignant novel reveals
humanity‘s ultimate vulnerability and the consequent role of the individual in any genocide.
***
Ahmed DJOUDER
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The author
Ahmed Djouder is an editor. ―Désintégration‖ is his first book.
His work
“Désintégration”
Specifications:
―Blue Series‖
157 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Il Saggiatore)
The book
Are Polish, Italian or Spanish people told that they are ‗third generation immigrants‘? Why Arabs? What is
so special about them? Why are we frightened of them and why are they frightened of France? In his
unique, elaborate yet often brutally direct style, the author offers a reading of the crisis that has been
brewing in the French suburbs and recently shook the country.
―Do you know many Arabs who have had a successful career? You would like to see them succeed? Well
then. There might well be a few teachers, a few social workers, some nurses and journalists, a handful of
sportsmen (presented as French of course) and lawyers, a few civil servants, a few councilors, one prefect of
police. This last one almost got killed. There are also loads of manual workers, salesmen, rubbish collectors,
masons, under-paid employees and technical and maintenance workers as well as people unemployed and in
jail…
Our parents will never play tennis, badminton, or golf. They‘ll never go skiing. They‘ll never eat in a fancy
restaurant; buy Louis-Philippe or Louis XV furniture, a Guy Degrenne table set, Baccarat glasses or even a
blind from Habitat. They will never go to a classical music concert. They will not acquire a flat or a pretty
house somewhere in France for their retirement. No. After decades of sacrifices, they choose to invest in
houses back in the ‗bled‘: concrete cubes built in the Arabic countryside and called villas.‖
This book sounds the alarm because its tone is truthful rather than merely provocative. It offers an insider‘s
point of view, intimate, raw and genuine, about an ‗integration‘ process that fails. This is the vision of a
very young author who gives us all the good reasons to do our duty as members of the electorate.‖
***
Jean-Luc DOUIN
The author
Jean-Luc Douin is a journalist for Le Monde. He is the author of several works on cinema, and in 2004 he
published an inquiry on the assassination of Gérard Lebovici: Les jours obscurs de Gérard Lebovici. Le
premier sommeil is his first novel.
His work
“Le premier sommeil”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
216 pages
Rights sold to: China (Jilin)
The book
The narrator, a journalist who is passionate about cinema, investigates in a young female novelist. She is
surrounded by mysteries, but this does not stop them from falling for each other as the investigation
advances.
Their love story brings back painful memories for the narrator, who had an affair with the young Sarah
Miller thirty years before. She died shortly afterwards in tragic circumstances during the turbulent period of
1968.
Sarah Miller was the daughter of Rachel Miller, a former actress of Russian descent, who made a career in
Hollywood in the 1930s under the name of Susan Swinton. She mingled with the biggest names of the art
scene of the time. Connoisseur of cinema, of magnetic faces and hidden beauties, the narrator remembers
this forgotten star very well.
Did Sarah really exist? Is she not merely the face of a dream, the body of a phantasm? Did Rachel Miller
illuminate the Hollywood screens? What is the narrator looking for, if it is not himself, through sleepless
nights? Everything is but thoughts, poetry and mystery.
Le premier sommeil reminds one of the universe of films by David Lynch and by the surrealists. Troubling,
sensual, dreamlike and melancholic, the novel mixes phantasm and reality. Apart from being a true-false
sociological police investigation, where Hollywood actresses mingle with painters and forgotten poets, this
novel is also a love story, a vibrating homage to cinema and literature, and to the eternal feminine.
***
“ECRIVINS”:
A COLLECTION DIRECTED BY PHILIPPE CLAUDEL
―The collection ECRIVINS is the result of two loves: the love of wine and the love of literature.
Furthermore, it is the result of a lack: There are hundreds of books about wine, but very few are written by
actual writers. Historians, sociologists, scientists have written about wine, but very few authors have.
ECRIVINS is not a collection by specialists, but by amateurs, by lovers. We invite writers of all cultures
and languages to celebrate the wine, to make wine the subject of fiction or introspection. Novel, short story,
pamphlet, auto-fiction, memoirs…the form can be various, the content matters…‖ Philippe CLAUDEL
Published so far in the Collection ECRIVINS:
Patrick CLOUX:
Daniel ARSAND:
Sébastien LAPAQUE:
Pierre CHARRAS
Alain ROEHR
Sylvie GOUTTEBARON
Baptiste-Marrey
Nicole LOMBARD
Jean-Claude PIROTTE
―Un vin de paille,‖ 180 p. Rights available.
―Ivresses du fils,‖ 120 p. Rights available.
―Chez Marcel Lapierre,‖ 150 p. Rights available.
―L’oiseau,‖ 96 p. Rights available.
―Le fil de l’eau,‖ 87 p. Rights available.
―Du corps,‖ 68 p. Rights available.
―Rouge le vin, rouge mon cœur,‖ 70 p. Rights available.
―Loin des vendanges,‖ 158 p. Rights available.
―Expédition nocturne autour de ma cave,‖ 92 p. Rights available.
***
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François EMMANUEL
The author
François Emmanuel lives in Belgium. He is the author of several novels, amongst others ―La passion
Savinsen‖ (Stock, 1998), ―Le vent dans la maison‖ (Stock, 2004) and ―Bleu de fuite‖ (Stock, 2005).
His work
“La question humaine”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
112 pages
Rights sold to: Argentina (Losada), Italy (San
Paolo), Greece (Travlos), UK (Review, English
world rights, Brazil (Estaçao Liberdade), The
Netherlands (De Arbeiderspers), Germany (Antje
Kunstmann), Bulgaria (Sema)
The book
A psychologist, assigned to the human resources department of a multinational corporation must discreetly
investigate the mental health of the CEO. At first, he believes that he is facing a simple conflict between
people, but, little by little, he is dragged into the private life and the painful trust of the man he is supposed
to observe. After successive discoveries, the past re-emerges into the present, and the logic of mass murder
sheds a terrible light on our technocratic society.
A cinema adaptation of ―La question humaine‖ was released September 2007 in France.
“Le vent dans la maison”
Specifications:
―Blue Series‖
198 pages
Rights available
The book
Just returned from Africa, Hugo returns to the village where he spent his summers as a child. Alice
Almeida, a woman he was in love with but hasn‘t seen for sixteen years, had sent him a strange and
alarming letter. He goes to her house and finds it in ruins: something terrible has happened. Interned in a
psychiatric hospital in the area, Alice is only the shadow of her former self, walled in silence, diminished,
insane. Patiently and stubbornly, Hugo tries to reach her. Her inner wanderings reflect the narrator‘s own
solitude. He has also had a traumatic experience: during an investigation of a disappearance in the Aïr
desert, he was seriously wounded and then saved by a Tuareg woman. Day after day, the haunting story of
those ―Tuareg nights‖ hovers over these lovers of the past and mysteriously seals their reunion. Alice breaks
through her silence little by little, the story is reconstructed in violent spurts. Fragile and tenuous, life makes
its way again through the long dried-out channels.
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―Bleu de fuite‖ (2005), ―Le sentiment du fleuve‖ (2003), ―La chambre voisine‖ (2001), ―La passion
Savinsen‖ (1998; rights sold to Estonia (Varrak), Romania (Fondation Libra). Please contact our foreign
rights department for further information.
***
Annie ERNAUX
The author
Annie Ernaux published her first novel ―Les armoires vides‖ in 1974. Awarded the Prix Renaudot in 1984
for ―La place,‖ she wrote amongst others ―Une femme‖ (1988), ―Passion simple‖ (1992) and ―La honte‖
(1997), all published at Gallimard.
Her work
“L’écriture comme un couteau – Entretien avec Frédéric-Yves Jeannet”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
162 pages
Rights sold to: Korea (Munhakdongne)
The book
―Throughout this interview of Frédéric-Yves Jeannet, my only concern was to be as sincere and precise as
possible; the former, as I discovered, being more difficult to obtain than the latter. It is not easy to account
for thirty years of the practice of writing, without unifying or boiling it down to a few principles, letting
inevitable contradictions appear, or bringing concrete detail to what most of the time escapes our
consciousness. The assembly of my sentences and the choice of words is dictated by my desire, and I cannot
teach this to some one else as it eludes even me. But I think I can at least give an idea of the aim of my texts
and my ‗reasons‘ for writing.‖ - Annie Ernaux
***
Éric FAYE
The author
Éric Faye was born in 1963. He works for the Reuter‘s Paris office. Author of short stories as well as
novels, he has published ―Croisière en mer des pluies‖ (1999), ―Les cendres de mon avenir‖ (2001), ―La
durée d‘une vie sans toi‖ (2003), ―Mes trains de nuit‖ (2005), ―Le syndicat des pauvres types‖ (2006), and
―L‘homme sans empreintes‖ (2008) at Stock. Faye is also an essay writer, specialist of Ismaïl Kadaré. One
of the most original writers of his generation, he constructs universes that are imbued with a unique sense of
the fantastic and mythical.
His works
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“Nagasaki” – Grand Prix du roman de l‟Académie Française 2010
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
1112 pages
Rights sold to: Catalonia (1984), China (Shangai
Translation), Denmark (Arvids), Hungary (Goncol
Kiado), Italy (Barbès), Korea (Book 21), Poland
(Emka), Portugal (Gradiva), Serbia (Geopoetika)
,Spain
(Salamandra),
Russia
(AST-Release
Holdings), Taiwan (Acropolis).
The book
The title comes from the film Casablanca: it is while reminiscing about this luminous moment - their love
idyll in Paris prior to the German occupation - that the two lovers can continue to live, go their separate
ways if necessary, and follow their own paths.
This book is dedicated to this unique feeling: the sense of wonder, how it is born and runs through the life of
an individual – the life of the author himself.
Nous aurons toujours Paris is a circular novel that unravels through childhood and its first experiences of
wonder – magic words, fabulous creatures, magnetic objects and unfamiliar situations – all the way to
adulthood where the sense of wonder extends.
There is not much said about Paris in this book. It is, rather, filled with tales of journeys from Japan to
Africa, and meetings - from Julien Gracq to Ismail Kadaré to Albert Cossery, and the shadow of the
enigmatic B. Traven.
It is through the ceaseless back and forth from the dream-world of one‘s childhood to its resonances in the
world of adulthood – and in the gap that exists between the two – that the sense of wonder flourishes, that a
life and oeuvre are built, with their false starts, their disillusions and their surprises.
“Nous aurons toujours Paris”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
196 pages
Rights sold to: Bulgaria (Pulsio)
The book
The title comes from the film Casablanca: it is while reminiscing about this luminous moment - their love
idyll in Paris prior to the German occupation - that the two lovers can continue to live, go their separate
ways if necessary, and follow their own paths.
This book is dedicated to this unique feeling: the sense of wonder, how it is born and runs through the life of
an individual – the life of the author himself.
Nous aurons toujours Paris is a circular novel that unravels through childhood and its first experiences of
wonder – magic words, fabulous creatures, magnetic objects and unfamiliar situations – all the way to
adulthood where the sense of wonder extends.
There is not much said about Paris in this book. It is, rather, filled with tales of journeys from Japan to
Africa, and meetings - from Julien Gracq to Ismail Kadaré to Albert Cossery, and the shadow of the
enigmatic B. Traven.
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It is through the ceaseless back and forth from the dream-world of one‘s childhood to its resonances in the
world of adulthood – and in the gap that exists between the two – that the sense of wonder flourishes, that a
life and oeuvre are built, with their false starts, their disillusions and their surprises.
“L’homme sans empreintes”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
268 pages
Rights sold to: Bulgaria (Pulsio), Slovakia (Editions
de l‘Association des écrivains Slovaques).
The book
It is in the imaginary Latin-American republic of Costaguana that the writer B. Osborn is buried. Like each
year, his widow Aurelia undertakes a long journey to visit his tomb, which is in the Indian lands. There, she
is supposed to meet with a German professor who claims he can reveal certain things about her late
husband‘s past.
Yet others tempt to rip off the mask of ―the century‘s most secretive writer:‖ Rebecca Hamilton, an
American woman who was Osborn‘s last love; Thomas Ahorn, the German professor who is a specialist of
Salinger; Wagenbach, an old anarchist exiled on an island in the Baltic Sea; Aguila Mendes, a young,
ambitious and unscrupulous journalist. And even Alfred Hitchcock, who was said to have tried to adapt to
the screen one of the novels of the mysterious writer, with the disconcerting Kim Novak. Each narrator
applies him- or herself to recompose the puzzle of a life built on deceit.
Yet Osborn keeps slipping away. Director of an anarchist magazine in Berlin, ethnologist in the jungle,
owner of a hostel, literary agent… he spreads confusion and stays elusive, with multiple identities.
Inspired by B. Traven, author of the enigmatic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Osborn is a fascinating
character, some kind of adventurer who chose to go underground. Beyond the entrancing investigation
tracking down his hero, Éric Faye wonders about the effacement of the writer behind his works, and about
the impossible biography.
“Le syndicat des pauvres types”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
214 pages
Rights available
The book
The novel starts with the transfer of Antoine Blin‘s remains from the Panthéon to… the graveyard of his
native suburb. This humble post-office employee, robbed of a real life, the victim of crooks of all kinds,
suddenly emerges from the shadows into the limelight. At the age of forty four, Antoine is elected as ‗Mister
Everybody‘, and celebrated as one of the most popular personality of the country.
It was on an exceptionally hot, stuffy day, that it suddenly happened. For a while now, Antoine had become
convinced that a pungent, persistent smell surrounded him. Coming out of the doctor‘s, he made an
encounter that changed his destiny and lead him to his tragic end.
―Le syndicat des pauvres types‖ is a comical and cruel tale with a anti-hero, a solitary, withdrawn man who
hardly has a taste of glory before he is murdered. Éric Faye delights in combining the everyday reality with
absurdity, angst and humor. This novel confirms the unique, compelling style that had guaranteed the
success of Faye‘s first novel, ―Le Général Solitude,‖ (Le Serpent à Plumes, 1995).
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“Mes trains de nuit”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
252 pages
Rights sold to: Korea (Prunsoop)
The book
Journeys by night trains became Eric Faye‘s first experience with happy insomnia. Moscow, Prague, Split,
Sarajevo, Berlin, Peking – so many sleepless nights shared with the ―people of the corridor:‖ smokers,
lovers of the night, unrepentant chatters. The sleeper is a privileged space for dreams and encounters, a
space where time seems to stop, and the train journey becomes a condensed version of one‘s existence, with
its separations and its terminus. From Hitchcock to Lars von Trier, filmmakers have explored the potentials
of this propitious stage where mystery and magic operate. Unravelling fleeting memories that provide the
wonderful material of his fiction, the author takes us along an unusual literary maze. Aboard the Red arrow
or the Kafka express, we cross forgotten frontiers, empires that have vanished from the maps, lost corners of
the world. The book is a celebration in praise of slow motion, contemplation and a form of nomadic
existence that is about to disappear.
―La durée d’une vie sans toi‖ (2003) and ―Les cendres de mon avenir‖ (2001). Please contact our foreign
***
Aurélie FILIPPETTI
The author
The daughter of miners from the Lorraine region, Aurélie Filippetti studied at the famous École normale.
She has been elected councilor in the 5th district of Paris, and heads the Festival international du
documentaire of Marseille. Her first novel, ―Les derniers jours de la classe ouvrière,‖ was met with great
critical acclaim.
Her works
“Un homme dans la poche”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
212 pages
Rights available
The book
It is a love story, but the story of a love that has vanished; a lost love. Writers always write the same book,
the same story. Aurélie Filippetti‘s first novel - a book that explored her family origins against the backdrop
of the mining world till the closure of the last pit at Audun-le Tiche - was a success with the critics and the
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public alike. To follow from ―Les derniers jours de la classe ouvrière,‖ with the intimate love story of ―Un
homme dans la poche‖ may thus appear a step away from her initial approach and as such, a risky venture.
But it is the opposite: risky indeed - but all true writers take risks - yet not necessarily foreign to her original
field. In effect, there seems to be no subject more topical to the working class reality than that of adulterous
love. He is married and she is not. He has two children, and she brings up her little girl alone. They fall in
love. Aurélie Filippetti shows, like no-one else did before, how love and class are tied together. The only
moment where the lovers are equal, one and the same person, is, precisely, when they are naked, making
love. Otherwise, the inequality reappears – a domination born less of gender than of class difference. For
him, birth is what matters, more than education or habits. She, on the other hand, remains in the grip of a
shame that would only vanish if her lover abandoned a comfortable life to take her away. But he will not
give up this existence; will not take her away; and so his lover, the story teller, finally chooses to keep this
man in her pocket as it were, so as not to forget him completely.
Beautifully crafted, raw and intense, Aurélie Filippetti‘s novel is deeply affecting: few writers have
managed to say, in one book, the truth of human bodies caught in the web of the class system.
“Les derniers jours de la classe ouvrière”
Specifications:
―Blue Series‖
198 pages
Rights sold to: Greece (Polis), Italy (Il Saggiatore)
The book
This particularly moving novel is a just and vibrant tribute to the working class of the twentieth century.
Around the central figure of Angelo – renamed Angel, son of Italian immigrants who was a miner for thirty
years before becoming a communist mayor – emerges a portrait of those generations of workers who
underwent exile, war, political disillusionment and economical recession. And behind and beside them a
hidden population - wives, children and colleagues – has been sacrificed and nearly forgotten. To these
people often ashamed of their condition, the author gives a voice.
***
Michel FOLCO
The author
Michel Folco has previously written Dieu et nous seuls pouvons (1991), Un loup est un loup (1995) and En
avant comme avant ! (2001), all published at Seuil.
His work at Stock
“Même le mal se fait bien”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
598 pages
Rights available
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The book
This is the story of a former Roman camp, which has become a small village in a small valley of the
Piedmont, victim of isolation, of inbred marriages, of Alaric the Wisigoth, of the bubonic plague, of a badly
chosen mayor and of an atrabilious doctor.
It is the story of a family filled with unwillingness, bad feelings, twisted strokes, and within which the Bad
triumphs triumphantly.
It is the story of a gastro-duodenal ulcer and of a testamentary clause obliging Marcello Tricotin – an
authentic son of a whore – to go on a long and complicated journey through the Austro-Hungarian kingdom
of the early twentieth century.
It is the story of a trip full of hardships, initiating and not exactly jubilatory, which shows that, if the last
will and testament of a deceased are sacred, they can be particularly annoying.
It is the story of a stay in Vienna where Marcello Tricotin‘s path will cross with Sigmund Freud‘s, where he
will meet the celestial Thunder and where he will succeed in staying fifteen meters under water in the
Danube for fifteen minutes.
It is also the detailed account of an unnatural alliance between three species of termites and a school teacher
looking for revenge, which will provoke a radical, exemplary and edifying vengeance, and which, to say all,
turns out to be a hundred per cent gratifying.
Accessorily, it is also the definite solution of a historical mystery, revealing the identity of the father of the
retired imperial and royal customs officer named Aloïs Schickelgruber-Hitler.
“La jeunesse mélancolique et très désabusée d’Adolf Hitler”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
352 pages
Rights sold to : Hungary (Ab Ovo), Syria (Ninawa)
The book
This is the story of a former Roman camp, which has become a small village in a small valley of the
Piedmont, victim of isolation, of inbred marriages, of Alaric the Wisigoth, of the bubonic plague, of a badly
chosen mayor and of an atrabilious doctor.
It is the story of a family filled with unwillingness, bad feelings, twisted strokes, and within which the Bad
triumphs triumphantly.
It is the story of a gastro-duodenal ulcer and of a testamentary clause obliging Marcello Tricotin – an
authentic son of a whore – to go on a long and complicated journey through the Austro-Hungarian kingdom
of the early twentieth century.
It is the story of a trip full of hardships, initiating and not exactly jubilatory, which shows that, if the last
will and testament of a deceased are sacred, they can be particularly annoying.
It is the story of a stay in Vienna where Marcello Tricotin‘s path will cross with Sigmund Freud‘s, where he
will meet the celestial Thunder and where he will succeed in staying fifteen meters under water in the
Danube for fifteen minutes.
It is also the detailed account of an unnatural alliance between three species of termites and a school teacher
looking for revenge, which will provoke a radical, exemplary and edifying vengeance, and which, to say all,
turns out to be a hundred per cent gratifying.
Accessorily, it is also the definite solution of a historical mystery, revealing the identity of the father of the
retired imperial and royal customs officer named Aloïs Schickelgruber-Hitler.
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***
Élise FONTENAILLE
The author
Born in Nancy in 1960, Élise Fontenaille began her career as a journalist. She has written five novels,
published by Grasset: ―La Gommeuse‖ (1997), ―Le Palais de la Femme‖ (1999), ―Demain les Filles on va
tuer papa‖ (2001), ―L‘Enfant Rouge‖ (2002) and ―Brûlements‖ (2006).
Her work at Stock
“Unica”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
162 pages
Rights available
The book
The story takes place in Vancouver, in the near future. Herb Charity is a cyber policeman, part of a
specialised branch of the police force that hunts down pedophiles on the Net. During one of their inquests,
he arrests a young woman and falls in love with her. Yet Unica Bathory is a disconcerting character: a
women who appears to have stopped growing up - a fake child with white hair. She is also the leader of a
gang of nano-terrorists that punishes voyeurs as well as the clients of pedophilic networks by injecting their
cortex with a computer chip to make them feel the pain of the children they abuse – an unbearable suffering
that can provoke blindness.
At the frontier between reality and the virtual, truth and deceit, a strange love story develops between Herb,
a young man not yet fully adult, and Unica, a grown up woman locked in the body of a young girl. Unica is
a cruel and playful tale that takes place in a very near future and offers a highly topical reflection on the era
of virtuality (love through machines, virtual crimes…).
Élise Fontenaille is a formidable story teller. Hers are wonder worlds populated with the strangest of
characters. With Unica, she constructs a story in the tradition of Philip-K. Dick and Tim Burton‘s fiction.
***
François FORESTIER
The author
François Forestier is a journalist for Le Nouvel Observateur. He recently published ―Howard Hughes,
l‘Homme aux secrets‖ (Michel Lafon, 2005), which was an instant best-seller.
His work at Stock
“Rue des rats”
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Specifications
Thriller
259 pages
Rights sold to: Romania (SG AG DE PUBL
TRITONIC).
The book
In the 18th quarter of Paris, between the districts of the Goutte d‘or and that of La Chapelle, drug reigns.
Poverty and exclusion have colonized the place while rats took over bins, gutters, and buildings … All
traficking is controlled by two black gangs: the Salt Men gang and the Men‘s Men gang. Max Mpétigo is a
metis, expert in industrial risk management. Max observes the disintegration of this world, so familiar to
him. Yet this time, unrest is growing amongst the locals. Algerians, Sudanese, Koreans, Haitians, Croatians
and Byelorussians – the community is angry: buildings are crumbling, fires multiply, the police finds
several horribly mutilated bodies of murdered drug addicts. One more in a series of police mishandlings and
the whole district is in turmoil. Although Max agrees to cooperate with police inspector Sétubal, the
investigation is complicated by the discovery that Max‘s friend Macdou, owner of the most popular of the
local restaurants, is implicated in dirty business. In the midst of the dark wars waged by opposite factions
and hidden powers, Mpétigo has to try and save his friend and restore the fragile balance that keeps the
community together.
***
Éric FOTTORINO
The author
Born in 1960, Éric Fottorino is a journalist for Le Monde.
His works at Stock
“Un territoire fragile”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
166 pages
Rights sold to: Greece (Diamantis),The Netherlands
(Wereldbibliotheek), Spain (Tempora)
The book
Clara Werner, a woman in her twenties, walks the streets of Bergen, Norway. She has just found work at the
Oceanographic Institute and appears content with her life. She feels liberated from Morocco and from the
husband who returned her love by beating and raping her during their exile in Dublin. But as she continues
to walk the wharves of Bergen, she knows that her husband and Morocco are still deep within her. Doctors
have told her that they cannot help her with her strange skin disease, and Clara is convinced that she is
incurable. But one day, she meets a man who tunes bodies like instruments. During their encounters, Clara
lies naked under his spell while he delivers her from years of pain, beginning with her memories of an
unloving mother. Under his healing touch, Clara recalls her most influential moments her childhood, her
Moroccan youth and her terror in Dublin when she fought for her life.
“Nordeste”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
236 pages
Rights sold to: Greece (Diamantis)
The book
A long time ago, Waldemar Cuzco sold Brasilian children to rich Europeans. Tancrède, his compagnon, a
very old parrot, was his accomplice. He is Waldemar‘s memory, he knows all of his secrets but does not
divulge them.
―Nordeste‖ is a love story dominated by the song of a bird who repeats nothing. Each in turn, the characters
speak and answer each other. Their successive voices reconstruct Waldemar‘s broken life. From silent
murmurs appears the veritable portrait of the man who was loved by a woman, thousands of children and a
very old Tancrède who knew the fragility of terrestrial pleasures.
***
Jean-Louis FOURNIER
The author
Jean-Louis Fournier is the author of a number of successful essays and novels where the humour and
humanity of his style always shines, amongst others Grammaire française et impertinente (Payot, 1992 ), Il
a jamais tué personne mon papa (Stock, 1999), Mon dernier cheveu noir (Editions Anne Carrière, 2006).
Où on va, papa ? may well be his most desperately funny book to-date.
His works at Stock
“Où on va, papa ?” – PRIX FEMINA 2008
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
156 pages
The book
Dear Mathieu, dear Thomas,
Rights sold to: Albania (Shtëpia), Egypt (GEBO),
USA/world rights (Other Press), Germany (dtv), Italy
(Rizzoli), Spain (Destino), The Netherlands (De Geus),
Hungary (Ab Ovo), Israel (Matar), Korea (Yolimwon),
Vietnam (Nha Nam), Taiwan (Acquarius), China
(Shanghai 99), Poland (Ksiaznica), Norway (Cappelen),
Bulgaria (Kama), Brazil (Intrinseca), Greece (Melani)
Croatia (Znanje), Czech Republic (Computer press),
Denmark (Arvids), Estonia (Loonmingu Raamatukogu),
Finland (Siltala), Japan (Hakisuisha), Portugal (Guerra &
Paz), Romania (Nemira), Serbia (Stylos), Slovakia (Q
111), Sri Lanka (Samayawardhana) and Turkey (Yapi
Kredi).
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When you were small I was often tempted to offer you a book. A „Tintin‟ for instance. We could have
discussed it afterwards. I know the Tintin books well. I have read them all several times. I never did it. It
was not worth it, you did not know how to read. You will never know how to read. Until the end, your
presents will consist of building blocks and toy cars…
I wrote this book for them because I don‘t want them to be forgotten, to survive only in the form of a picture
on an invalidity card. And there is the guilt. I was never a very good father. Often, they got on my nerves.
You had to have the patience of an angel, and I am no angel.
When one talks about handicapped children, one puts on a suitably concerned expression, as if talking about
a catastrophe. For once, I would like to do so with a smile. They did make me laugh, albeit involuntarily,
with their pranks. They gave me a number of advantages that parents of normal children did not enjoy. I
never had to worry about their studies and their professional future. We never had to decide between
sciences or humanities. Most of all, for all these years, I was granted a free road tax disk. Thanks to them, I
was able to drive large American cars.‖ – Jean-Louis Fournier
“Satané Dieu !”
Specifications
94 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Meridiano Zero), Korea
(Wisdom House), Turkey (Chiviyazilari)
The book
God has finished the world. He has done his 150 terms. He can retire. He chooses to move in with St Peter
on the top floor of a tower block, overlooking humanity. Sometimes, he plays dominos with St Peter, but
mostly, he is bored. He hears the downstairs neighbors having a good time and he is jealous. Their
happiness hurts him. This is when he decides to create all those ills, great and small, that make the daily life
of men a misery: mosquitoes, famine, rust, fish bones, Mondays, acne, oil, wasps, ITV, the plague,
overpopulation, crying children, cholesterol…Every night, God and St Peter have a hell of a time. After
creating the paradise on earth, God was inventing an inferno. God‘s goodness is much talked about, his
cruelty less so, but Jean-Louis Fournier decided to remind us about all the God of Love‘s Machiavellian
inventions, all that can turn human life into hell. In fact, God doesn‘t love men: that is the message this
insolent, cheerful book conveys for the greatest entertainment of the free spirited reader.
“Il a jamais tué personne mon papa”
Specifications
154 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Salani), Greece (Patakis),
Thailand (Butterfly), Korea (Woongjin), China
(Commonwealth Publishing), Germany (Deutscher
Taschenbuch)
The book
Jean-Louis Fournier recounts his memories of childhood in a provincial town, in the middle of an
uncommon family, with a father, a doctor, who dresses like a bum, visits his patients in slippers, loses his
car in a beetroot field and plays ball with oranges. A father who makes one laugh or cry because this father
likes to have a drink, or several, in bistros.
“Le CV de Dieu”
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PUBLISHED BY STOCK
Specifications
Publication
(reprint)
214 pages
date:
November
2088
Rights sold to: Italy (Vallecchi)
The book
The sky had been done, the earth had been done too, and so did the animals, and mankind. God thought he
was done, too, and sank into profound melancholy. He didn‘t know what to do. He did some pottery, mould
a ball of earth, but his heart wasn‘t at it anymore. He lacked self-confidence, had lost faith. God didn‘t
believe in God any longer. He urgently needed some kind of activity, new projects, big building sites. So he
decided to go and find a job, and, like anyone else, wrote his curriculum vitae…
“Poète et paysan”
Specifications
Publication date: Juin 2010
162 pages
Rights sold to: Taiwan (Aquarius), Korea (Sangsang
School Publishing)
The book
―What am I doing here?
I have a pitchfork in my hand, the handle slick with filth - I‘m shifting manure. The cows are watching
disdainfully, and the only soothing thing is the gentle gaze of one heifer. My hands are spattered with slurry,
they stink. Every five minutes, I run to the kitchen sink to wash them. Yesterday, I wanted to be Fellini,
today I‘ve become a toilet attendant for cows.‖
Jean-Louis Fournier can do anything. As a film student in Paris, he can decide he wants to overhaul a farm
for the sake of the farmer‘s lovely daughter. The father had once been a fishmonger, he could back to the
fishmongers.
He is a bit mad, this Fournier, and when he is in love - which, apparently happens quite often - he goes even
more mad. Perhaps that is why he can write books for us?
Well, let‘s hope he stays in love a long time, then.
―Antivol, l’oiseau qui avait le vertige‖ (2003), ―Le petit Meaulnes‖ (2001) and ―J’irai pas en enfer‖
(2001; rights sold to Korea). Please contact our foreign rights department for further information.
***
Victor GARDON
The author
Victor Gardon, a.k.a Vahram Gakavian was born in Van, Armenia, in 1903. He died on 29 January 1973 in
Paris.
In 1915, his family flew the Turkish massacres, and in 1923, he left Turkey for France. A prisoner during
WWII, he escaped and joined the resistance under the pseudonym of Victor Gardon. After the liberation, he
became part of the Armenian and French intellectual circles and befriended Achod Nichanian, Méloyan,
Carzou, Nigoghos Sarafian, Nubar Arpiarian as well as Raymond Aron.
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Victor Gardon died of a heart attack. He had just completed the fourth volume of his saga. This last volume
has not been found yet.
His work
“Le Vanetsi. Une enfance arménienne”
Specifications
Publication date: June 2008 (reprint)
598 pages
Rights available
The book
Le Vanetsi is the new edition, in one volume, of Victor Gardon’s famous trilogy published between
1959 and 1970.
Gardon‘s ambitious saga follows the destiny of Vahram Gavakian, a young Armenian boy who lives in Van
with his grand-mother at the beginning of the twentieth century. The novel initially takes the form of a
colorful tale of country-side existence, celebrating daily life in the village where Vahram is growing up with
an authoritarian but irresistible grand-mother - men working in the fields; women busy with domestic
chores; arranged marriages; first love…
However, under the Turkish domination Armenia was to suffer a series of terrible upheavals and
repressions. The ‗Young Turcs‘ deposed the sultan and seized power, bringing hope to Armenia, but the
start of WWI destroyed all expectations: as massacres begun it was time to leave the ancestral home and
Vahram‘s family started on its exodus. From Igdir to Tiflis, they drifted through a devastated, ransacked
country, where mass graves and torture had become widespread. At the beginning of the Russian revolution,
in 1917, the family decided to leave Georgia for good and took to the road again…
Varham‘s was no ordinary childhood, and we see the world through his eyes, as he describes all he sees,
even the most atrocious scenes, with an almost clinical detachment. A far cry form sentimentalism, this
sense of distance is the greatest force of this account of the Armenian tragedy. The great sensuality and the
poetry that pervade each page turn this tale into a deeply affecting testimony.
***
Bruno GIBERT
The author
Bruno Gibert was born in a Parisian suburb in 1961 and is a children‘s book artist. Following ―Claude‖
(2000), which was awarded the Prix du premier roman, he has published ―Les Écrivains‖ (2002), ―Le sol de
Mars‖ (2003) ―Juste né‖ (2005), and ―Réussir sa vie‖ (2006) at Stock.
His works at Stock
“Réussir sa vie”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
160 pages
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PUBLISHED BY STOCK
Rights available
The book
They live in the Parisian suburbs of Gennevilliers, Asnières or Nanterre. They are 23, 39 or 56 years old.
Drifting youth, cashier, barman, immigrant without papers, they are unemployed or they earn the minimum
salary or moonlight; here, they talk about their private and professional life, the setbacks and the hopes.
Instability, small jobs, small time trafficking, depression, divorce… When you are young, you don‘t know
what life will be like. Should we bury our childhood dreams in order to find a place in society?
Who are these characters talking to? A potential employer, a temping agency representative, a psychologist
or the Prime Minister? Bruno Gibert offers us tales that are both unique and universal. Because Tonino or
Nicole, at this point in their life story, reflect our own ways of dealing with the world. At the same time, the
repetitive discourse on success, with its recipes, acts as a foil, reminding us of our duty to perform and be
fulfilled. Better than an essay, ―Réussir sa vie‖ shows the gaps and silent sufferings that split our society.
This is a provocative novel, which unusual style and structure constructs a compelling critique of the myth
of individual success.
“Avec enfant”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
112 pages
Rights available
The book
This book is a work of exorcism.
A father speaks to his daughter as if they were having a fight. He addresses her in all sincerity, with all his
feelings, and he is both unfair and clumsy towards her. Haunted by the fear of the death of love, he tries to
conjure fate away by telling her about his dread, his frustration and his resentment. His daughter, the child
that he so wanted, has turned his life up-side-down. Love has grown between them, taking his selfsufficiency away, turning him into a father, a man with child.
Is there any freedom left? What should one transmit to a child? How to communicate in the long term? The
father wants to observe and explore the obscure connection that unites him to his daughter and that he
cannot severe. He wants to investigate it and, ultimately, unearth the hidden language that will allow him to
express the force of his love.
Also available at Stock: ―Claude‖ (2000; Prix du premier roman), ―Les écrivains‖ (2002), ―Le sol de
mars et autres photographies‖ (2003), and ―Juste né‖ (2005). Please contact our foreign rights department
for further information.
***
Brigitte GIRAUD
The author
Brigitte Giraud was born in Algeria in 1960. She used to be a journalist and a bookseller and is now in
charge of an important literature festival in the area of Lyon, where she resides
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Her works at Stock
“L’amour est très surestimé” – Awarded the Bourse Goncourt de la Nouvelle 2007
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
96 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Fischer), China (Shanghai
century), Italy (Guanda), Norway (Engelstad),
Hungary (Europar), Greece (Potamos), Vietnam (Thai
Ha), Serbia (Stylos), Romania (Nemira), Taiwan
(Ecus), Korea (Sol Publishing), Israel (Resling)
The book
Eleven voices, eleven characters recount the end of a love story.
How did it happen? Irritation, indifferent kisses, conflicts, romances that are failures from the start: all in all,
the couple is unveiled, without the prop of fiction.
This is a depiction of the couple ripped apart and in pain, when you cannot stand each other anymore; when
you have stopped dreaming together; when you are about to break-up. You start explaining the situation to
the children. Or you think you can catch up the lost time and you shut your mouth to avoid creating
irreversible damages.
The end of love is also the disappearance of the loved one, the person you talk to in the dark and without
whom you loose your sense of place.
These are familiar stories, where we find again the small bargains, the disillusions, as well as the violence
that one experiences in such situations. These are tales of ordinary lives, from women and men as they
launch into the old adventure of love. Sparse and intense, in the vein of Brigitte Giraud‘s celebrated style,
this radical and deeply affecting book testifies to the author‘s unique ability to convey the fragility of
beings, and offers a lucid and critical account of life as a couple.
“J’apprends”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
162 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Fischer), Taiwan (Ecus)
The book
This novel is Nadia‘s story, a child, then a teenager, learning to read and discover the world. Two worlds
confront each other: the world of school, and that of home, almost completely independent of each other.
It is not so much what we learn at school that matters, but how school shapes our vision of the world, how
this parallel universe becomes the common denominator for a whole generation. To answer one‘s name
when the register is called; to wait for one‘s turn; write down the right answer; wait till the school mistress
looks at you… And also, be an obedient witness when a punishment goes too far, learn how to lie to adults,
resist them.
Brigitte Giraud‘s characteristic style, her concise and artless writing imbues each of her texts with an
unrivalled accuracy and emotional power.
“À présent”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
108 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Fischer), China (simplified
characters, Citic), Italy (Guanda)
The book
―We are seated in the shade of the cherry tree. Both families, as well as faithful friends. I move from one
chair to another, I get up, I don‘t know what to do with myself. I can‘t find where I ought to be. I am
surrounded by all those I love and yet I feel uneasy. I know that everyone, sooner or later, will leave. They
will go back to their lives. They will make love. They will continue with the things they have started.‖ ―A
présent‖ is the story of a woman who has just learnt about the brutal death of her partner. Brigitte Giraud
writes simply, without raising her voice or giving herself over to lamentation, with well chosen words that
go deep and give her work its universality.
“Une année étrangère”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
216 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Fischer), Italy (Guanda),
Portugal (Platano Editora).
The book
Having set off to Germany as an au pair girl, seventeen-year-old Laura finds she does not speak the
country‘s language as well as she thought. Next it is her host family, a couple with two children, who
perplex her with their simple way of life, their behaviour and habits. Is she here to look after the children, do
housework, improve her German or actually just grow up? She has ended up in an average family which
appears to be less torn apart than her own, to harbour fewer secrets, and yet Laura gradually comes face to
face with a number of mysteries: about origins and inheritance. She would so like to delve into these
characters for some truth, some meaning that would finally fill the gaps and silences in her endless
adolescence. When she grows close to the only boy in the family, does she recognise the younger brother
she has lost? Is she right to wait so feverishly for news of her own family back in France? Having found a
copy of Mein Kampf in the German grandfather‘s house she jumps to conclusions and can‘t help reading
those forbidden pages, only to find she is disgusted as well as fascinated by them. The children‘s mother
falls ill. The father seems to grow closer to Laura every day. What does he want from her? Laura wonders
what price she has to pay to become a woman, to confront her future and to leave this house so that she can
go home to her own.
Also available at Stock: ―Marée noire‖ (2004; rights sold to Germany and Iran), and ―Nico‖ (1999).
Please contact our foreign rights department for further information.
***
Jocelyne GODARD
The author
Jocelyne Godard is the author of a saga on ancient Egypt (Les Thébaines) and of the Trilogie des Millefleurs
published at Stock.
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Her works at Stock
“Trilogie des Millefleurs” volumes I, II, and III
The ―Millefleurs‖-trilogy takes place during the last two decades of the 15th century and portrays the reign
of Louis XI and Charlotte de Savoie. When the king dies, his eldest daughter, the wise and ambitious Anne
de Beaujeu, undertakes the Regency until her younger brother comes of age, the future King Charles VIII.
In order to put an end to the war, which Louis d‘Orléans had started between the House of Brittany and the
Crown, Anne de Beaujeu arranges the marriage of her brother to the Duchess Anne of Brittany, uniting
Brittany to France. This cycle of the ―Millefleurs‖-trilogy ends with Anne of Brittany‘s crowning as Queen
of France and Charles VIII embarking upon the first wars with Italy.
Volume I: “L’offrande du Coeur”
Specifications
Historical novel
427 pages
Rights available
The book
The year is 1480. Léonore – grand-daughter of Clarisse who was lost at sea near Constantinople and once
ran a tapestry workshop in Saumur – begins a search for her father Thomassaint, a tapestry weaver in
Flanders. She never knew him. Her chances of finding her father rest on the one thing she inherited from
him: a Millefleurs tapestry, a veritable little work of art known as ―l‘Offrande du Cœur‖ which was found
on a pirate ship roaming the Black Sea. A moving quest undertaken by an intrepid young woman who is
distracted from her goal by the impulses of her heart.
Volume II: “La baillée des roses”
Specifications
Historical novel
381 pages
Rights available
The book
1490. While Brittany fights for its independence, Léonore travels from Bruges – where her father runs a
tapestry workshop – to Tours, where the man she secretly loves is a canon at the bishopric. But more than
anything else, she dreams of seeing Isabelle, the child she had to abandon at the court of Brittany and who
was brought up alongside the Duchess Anne.
Volume III: “Une flambée d’or”
Specifications
Historical novel
359 pages
Rights available
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The book
1495. Brought up at the court of Brittany without knowing of her true origins, Isabelle de la Baume has
never met her mother Léonore Cassex and did not follow in the footsteps of her ancestors, tapestry weavers
in Val de Loire. But when Queen Anne, who‘s lady-in-waiting Isabelle is, tries to force her into marriage,
she rebels and flees to Italy. Without the support of her family, will she – like her mother – have to leave the
child she gives birth to and keeps hidden in Rome?
***
Simonetta GREGGIO
The author
Simonetta Greggio is Italian but has lived in France for more than twenty years. After her first novel, ―La
douceur des hommes‖ (Stock, 2005), she published a tale, ―Etoiles‖ (Flammarion, 2006), and a second
novel at Stock in 2007: ―Col de l‘Ange‖ (see ―New Titles‖).
Her works at Stock
“Dolce Vita 1959-1979”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
416 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Angelo Colla)
The book
1959. The Federico Fellini movie, La Dolce Vita, raises the roof in a prudish and religious Italy, and is
awarded the Palme d'Or in Cannes in 1960. Its success announces the beginning of a promising era full of
freedom and the end of poverty during the postwar period.
1969. A bomb explodes in Milan and kills sixteen people. It's a massacre, the first of many terrorist acts to
come that plunge Italy into mourning.
2010. Prince Malo confides in the priest Saverio. At the age of eighty he knows his life is coming to an end.
He confesses his loose life – the decadent lifestyle of an aristocrat – and the highly political secrets he had
never revealed until now. He is one of the last to witness the most glamorous and the darkest years of Italy.
Why and how the country we have loved so much could succumb to the Red terror after experiencing the
Black one?
Written like a movie scenario with flashback and sequence shots, this investigative book Dolce Vita tells us
the story of Italy between 1959 and 1979. Loose morals, financial scandals, the Red Brigades, Moro's
kidnapping and murder, the death of the director and poet Pasolini, the Cosa Nostra, the Vatican... The
author refers to all the major affairs that took place in Italy for twenty years. These events and their
mysterious connection are unraveled. As the reader progresses into the novel, a trail of blood appears little
by little between the Vatican, the Masonic Lodge shifting P2 and Mafia. Meanwhile a powerful America is
entering the scene, helping Italy towards freedom, while discretely enslaving it.
The novel Dolce Vita draws the fascinating portrait of this extremely romantic European country, and
enlightens about the Italy of today, the Italy ruled by a tragicomic Berlusconi. This story told by the last
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Leopard, gives a bittersweet taste and a poisonous charm to an infinite end-of-reign, since a country that
doesn't deal with its own history will always be haunted by it.
“Les mains nues”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
180 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Corbaccio), The Netherlands
(De Geus), Germany (Blanvalet), Slovakia (Pectus)
The book
Emma is a country veterinarian, a self sufficient 43-year old woman living a hard, solitary life. Giovanni, 14
years old and on the run, suddenly bursts into her life. Emma once knew his parents, Micol and Raphaël.
She has tried to forget about what happened between her and Giovanni‘s parents, and wants him to leave.
But he stays. Little by little, a tentative yet tender relationship establishes itself between Emma and
Giovanni.
When Micol comes to take Giovanni back, she senses that the unthinkable has happened between Emma
and the adolescent boy. There will be revenge, a court case… but for what reason, and against whom? Is this
to denounce a kind of love that remains a taboo? Or is it a way of dealing with a troubled past, with wounds
that have not healed?
Bare Hands is the portrait of a tough woman whose life is suddenly turned up-side-down. In this atypical
novel narrated through Emma‘s voice, Simonetta Greggio addresses a sensitive subject in an
uncompromising yet subtle way.
“Col de l’Ange”
Specifications
144 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Corbaccio), The Netherlands
(De Geus), Germany (Blanvalet).
The book
Nunzio died seventeen days ago. He left everything behind: his architect agency, his clients, his lover, and
his friend, Blue, who is wrecked by grief. Nunzio is dead and he is the only one who knows the truth. Why
is he still floating between the land of the dead and the land of the living?
Blue does not understand how Nunzio could just vanish like that, all of a sudden. At long last she decides to
go back to the ―Col de l‘Ange,‖ the village they grew up in, which they left thirty years before. Since then,
they have become famous: he as a celebrated architect, and Blue as a successful model, featuring on the
front covers of the best magazines. In the deserted family house, Blue is overwhelmed with memories.
When she was a small girl, she was nick-named Nine. Then she became Blue, the girl who makes heads
turn. This was not a painless process. Her childhood was ruined. Her heart still bears the marks of the blows
she received.
Blue knows that, dead or alive, her friend is waiting for her here. What she does not know is that it is a trap.
Someone else is waiting for her at the ―Col de l‘Ange,‖ someone who does not want to let her go. In the
midst of a terrible storm, she takes the path that leads from life to death under the watchful gaze of her ever
present guardian angel, Nunzio.
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“La douceur des hommes”
Specifications
175 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Corbaccio), Germany
(Blanvalet), The Netherlands (De Geus), Korea
(Prume Publishing)
The book
Before she dies, the free spirited Fosca embarks on one last trip to Venice with her elective grand-daughter
Constance. There is apparently little in common between the adventurous older woman and her careful, well
behaved young companion. Yet a deep friendship binds them together and in the course of the journey
Fosca entertains Constance with an open hearted account of her life. She recalls her childhood as a rich
heiress, and all the men, lovers and husbands, who passed through her life… After Fosca‘s death, Constance
inherits her mysterious black book-note, and discovers a new facet of her friend‘s personality. She also
realises that she herself holds the answers to many questions.
“Les mains nues”
Specifications
180 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Corbaccio), Germany (Diana
verlag), Russia (AST release)
The book
Emma is a country veterinarian, a self sufficient 43-year old woman living a hard, solitary life. Giovanni, 14
years old and on the run, suddenly bursts into her life. Emma once knew his parents, Micol and Raphaël.
She has tried to forget about what happened between her and Giovanni‘s parents, and wants him to leave.
But he stays. Little by little, a tentative yet tender relationship establishes itself between Emma and
Giovanni.
When Micol comes to take Giovanni back, she senses that the unthinkable has happened between Emma
and the adolescent boy. There will be revenge, a court case… but for what reason, and against whom? Is this
to denounce a kind of love that remains a taboo? Or is it a way of dealing with a troubled past, with wounds
that have not healed?
Bare Hands is the portrait of a tough woman whose life is suddenly turned up-side-down. In this atypical
novel narrated through Emma‘s voice, Simonetta Greggio addresses a sensitive subject in an
uncompromising yet subtle way.
***
Gaëlle GUERNALEC-LEVY
The author
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Gaëlle Guernalec-Lévy is thirty-three. She has worked as a journalist for ten years. L‟amant inachevé is
her first novel. In 2007 she published Je ne suis pas enceinte (Stock), a study on pregnant women who deny
their condition.
L’amant inachevé
Specifications
144 pages
Rights sold to: China (Jilin), Germany (Aufbau),
Italy (Mondadori), Spain (Grijalbo) and Romania
(Trei), Vietnam (Bach Viet)
The book
Claire has very vague memories of her first experiences with boys. There is only one boy whom her
mind and her body remember clearly. That was the year she was sixteen and she confided
everything to her diary, down to the last detail: how he touched her, how he looked at her. It was
exciting because the relationship was a secret one, but also because they never went all the way: it
remained an unfinished story.
Years later, a wife and a mother, and a woman who has explored many sides of her sexuality, she
still thinks about him. D. inhabits her memory as a mythical character, as her favorite fantasy, the
remedy to dull days. She keeps an eye on him, checks the phone book to make sure he is still alive
and not too far from her. She lives a secret double life, and starts her diary again, to escape daily
routine and the effect of time passing.
One day, she finds herself face to face with D. There is no choice: she has to live this story for real.
***
Amadou HAMPÂTÉ BÂ
The author
Fables, tales and legends, in turn humoristic, symbolic or mystical... The allegorical and facetious style of
the master storyteller that Amadou Hâmpaté Bâ was sheds a special light on the qualities and the
shortcomings of human society. Whether it is a question of adventure stories mixed with fantasy, satires or
slices of life, all of these tales attack our vanities: temptations of despotism, religious fanaticism,
indifference towards conflicts that do not concern us, etc.; but all of them invite us never to judge according
to appearances.
His works at Stock
“Il n’y a pas de petite querelle”
Specifications
Series: ―Bibliothèque Cosmopolite‖
168 pages
Rights available
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PUBLISHED BY STOCK
The book
Thirteen ―new tales from the Savannah‖ recall with humour the themes of the two previous volumes of
Amadou Hâmpate Bâ‘s tales. Argumentative lizards, tyrannical king, greedy marabout, etc., all frequent
each other in this delightful collection. Amadou Hâmpate Bâ was used to saying that ―instructing while
amusing has always been the major principle of ancient African teachers.‖ This collection shows, once
more, that he is the indisputable heir to this illustrious line.
“Contes initiatiques peuls”
Specifications
398 pages
Rights sold to: Spain (Paidos Iberica)
The book
Behind the recreational aspect of these two major African tales, written for all ages, each image, each event,
has a hidden meaning that Amadou Hampâté Bâ helps us to discover in an important ensemble of notes on
African symbolism and spiritualism.
These initiatory texts, among the most important of Peul heritage, illustrate the traps to avoid and the
obstacles to clear when one is engaged on the difficult path of self conquest and accomplishment.
“PETIT BODIEL et autres contes de la savanne”
Specifications
248 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Ibis)
The book
Petit Bodiel, traditional Peul tale, retraces the hilarious adventures of a wise little hare. Thanks to the gift of
guile inherited from ―Papa Good God‖, he manages to trick the most important characters. But, having
become arrogant because of his successes and his hidden powers, he hopes to become king, even to replace
―Papa Good God‖...
Petit Bodiel is followed by a choice of texts by Amadou Hampâté Bâ, narratives, and remarks, where he
evokes the multiple functions and degrees of signification of the traditional tale in Africa: ―yesterday‘s
message, to be used for tomorrow, transmitted across today‖.
***
Stéphanie HOCHET
The author
Stéphanie Hochet‘s first novel Moutarde douce was published by Robert Laffont, and was followed by Le
Néant de Léon (2003) and L‟Apocalypse selon Embrun (2004), both published by Stock. Les Infernales is a
black comedy in the author‘s distinctive and grating humorous tone.
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Her works at Stock
“Le néant de Léon”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
140 pages
Rights available
The book
Paul Sybar is CEO of the Railways Federation and the perfect incarnation of social success: an ascending
career without a hitch, a devoted wife, two admirable daughters… Everything would be perfect if it weren‘t
for Léon, his 15 year old son which he has trouble believing is his own. A bad student, unambitious, sullen
and rude, Léon is decidedly not following in his father‘s footsteps. But Paul has set up a challenge for
himself: to ―awaken‖ Léon. Yet he is already doubtful. Is there really any meaning to all this? Should
personal happiness really be sacrificed to social climbing? Of course, Léon will not ―awaken.‖ But the
Sybars‘ lives are about to be turned upside down…
“L’apocalypse selon Embrun”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
144 pages
Rights available
The book
Anne and Albert were preparing a simple and lukewarm existence in a little village in the country. But their
love diminishes. The day their sickly brown haired little girl named Embrun (as a homage to Victor Hugo)
is born, the couple split up. Anne will for a few years live an agitated love life. Embrun is neither pretty nor
endearing. Her presence provokes embarrassment and discomfort, she oozes an obscure energy which
destabilises her surroundings. She becomes a mediocre, distracted and exasperating student who is
impossible to pin down. Is she mocking or retarded? As Anna is trying to start a new life with Frantz, who is
already the father of two children, the sadistic drives and the perversion of Embrun will perturb the family
equilibrium. Her mother who feels guilty about not being able to love this child will be her favourite prey.
At once seductive, candid and diabolic, Embrun is some sort of anti Amélie Poulain who blooms in cruelty
and persecution. Fascinated by chaos, she knows how to use the image of saintliness to rule better.
“Les infernales”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
144 pages
Rights available
The book
What happened to Jessica Tignard? How did the pretty, incredibly charming and talented little girl become
this plain figure, this sourly, graceless woman? Stephanie Hochet‘s is a tale of perfect crime: a crime
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without a body, since Jessica lives to a ripe old age alongside Camille Mouche. Camille is her old rival.
During the castings where she used to compete with her, she envied and detested Jessica. When they meet
again, years later, Jessica has become a saleswoman in a beauty shop, and Camille has recently published
her first book. The two women seal a tacit pact. Jessica becomes the literary adviser of the diabolical
Camille who progressively enslaves her. As years go by, Jessica withers away while Camille flourishes as a
respected, successful writer of crime novels.
Les Infernales is the tale of a successful revenge. Like a spider weaving her web, Camille keeps her fragile
victim under her power and turns her into a consenting slave.
***
Marcela IACUB
The author
Marcela Iacub is a lawyer and a researcher at the CNRS. She has published, amongst other works, Qu‟avezvous fait de la libération sexuelle? (Flammarion, 2002), Le crime était presque sexuel (Flammarion, 2003),
L‟empire du ventre (Fayard, 2004), Antimanuel d‟éducation sexuelle (Bréal, 2005), Bêtes et victimes et
autres chroniques de Libération (Stock, 2005).
Her works at Stock
“Aimer tue”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
198 pages
Rights sold to: Korea (Segyese), Spain (Castilian
world rights, Inedita)
The book
Marcela Iacub‘s first novel is a forgery: a posthumous text allegedly left by the late psychiatrist Jean-Luc
Jamet to be discovered after his death. A forged text for a true work of fiction where comedy and tragedy
are woven together in a manner similar to Marie-France Hirigoyen‘s Le harcèlement moral. Jamet recounts
eight clinical cases that unravel like eight love stories with a very, very sad ending. Love kills. To love
certain individuals, dangerous or cruel people, can demolish us and destroy our love life. Accordingly,
Jamet‘s engagement is based on his belief for a fairer society, where love would be forbidden, and its
victims protected by law and by an arbitrary and totalitarian justice system. Those who love will lose, says
the book, while offering advice and instructions on how to avoid the traps of total love.
***
Isaia IANNACONE
The author
Isaia Iannaccone was born in Naples in 1949. A chemist and specialist of China, he is the only Italian
specialist of the history of sciences and techniques in China. He is currently a professor at the European
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School in Brussels and a researcher with the Observatoire Astronomique de Paris. He has written several
academic studies, amongst which Johann Schreck Terrentius : les sciences de la Renaissance et l‟esprit de
l‟Académie des Lincei dans la Chine des Ming, 1998, Histoire et civilisation de la Chine. Cinq leçons, 1999,
and two guides on China published by the Italian Touring Club (1994 and 1996). He is also the author of a
play, Marco Polo à Cambaluc, staged in Turin in 2005. At tock, he published two novels: L‟ami de Galilée
(2006) and Le rideau de jade (2008).
His work
“Le rideau de jade”
Specifications
392 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Sonzogno) and Serbia (Sezam)
The book
1760: The Jesuits are subjected to slander and repression and are threatened of being driven out of China
where they have been present for over a century.
The only way out is to successfully support the powerful emperor of the Manchou dynasty in his attempt to
satisfy his first wife‘s passion for theater. This is an incredible challenge: to perform a famous opera by
Carlo Goldoni, with music by Maestro Niccolo Piccini, at the heart of the Forbidden City. Yet what could
be a better weapon than theater in the conquest of the Celestial Empire?
Behind the formidable walls that surround the court of Peking, scheming and power struggles, sensuality
and jealousy, are rife. In the fascinating atmosphere of the era of enlightenment, Goldoni and the Jesuits,
Voltaire and Casanova, as well as cardinals, concubines, tenors, castrates and eunuchs, cross each others‘
path. Between Rome, Peking and Paris, this is a sweeping evocation of a golden age, where reason and
libertinage cohabited.
Following L‟ami de Galilée (2006), a best-seller in France and Italy that was further translated into four
languages, Le rideau de jade is equally dedicated to the relation between China and the West. The habits
and customs of the Chinese civilization and the artistic and cultural climate of the European courts of the
time are described with a wealth of details and authenticity, in a novel that mixes together real characters
and events with fictional heroes.
“L’ami de Galilée”
Specifications
Historical novel
456 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (RCS/Sonzogno), Greece
(Diigisi), Spain (Algaida), Serbia (Sezam Book),
Romania (Pro Editura)
The book
Rome, 1611: the greatest minds of the time meet in secret. The Inquisition keeps a close eye on Galileo and
on his latest invention, the telescope, as well as on his German friend, Johann Schreck aka Terrentius, a
doctor, surgeon, pharmacist, astronomer and mathematician. Because they question the ‗divine and
immutable laws‘, the two scientists are a threat to the dictatorial representatives of the religious powers.
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Terrentius is a man they must get rid of – a specialist of the autopsy who is about to reveal that the
functioning of the body has little to do with the descriptions of the scriptures…
Through his research work, Terrentius discovers documents that evoke a far away country governed by
intellectuals and scientists: China. He decides to go and live there according to his own beliefs while
pursuing his work. During the long and perilous trip that ensues, the Inquisition continues to hunt him. In
Peking, Terrentius triumphs: the emperor officially offers him the task of restructuring the Empire‘s
calendar.
L‟Ami de Galilée is a fascinating saga unfolding against the backdrop of the war between scientists and the
church.
***
Isabelle JARRY
The author
Isabelle Jarry is the author of L‟homme de la passerelle (awarded the Prix du Premier roman, Seuil, 1992),
L‟Archange perdu (Mercure de France, 1994), Le jardin Yamata (Stock, 1999), George Orwell, cent ans
d‟anticipation (Stock, 2003), J‟ai nom sans bruit (Stock, 2004), Millefeuille de onze ans (Stock, 2007), and
La traversée du desert (2008). She has also written three books on Théodore Monod.
Her works at Stock
“La voix des êtres aimés”
Specifications
―Blue series‖
304pages
Rights available
The book
In early summer, Céleste meets up with Paul, whom she has not seen for fifteen years.
He was her philosophy teacher, she was his young mistress for three years.
Paul is very ill. Knowing he will not survive, he asks Céleste to come and spend a few days with him in the
country. He also asks her to tell him a love story. Céleste describes an affair she had in Vietnam, some years
earlier, with a fisherman named Hoang. As Céleste gradually reveals this romance, Paul actually relives
their passionate love affair. In the idle silence of summer days, the two characters are locked together with
the ghosts of their past love. The relationship between Céleste and Hoang interweaves with Paul and
Céleste‘s, drawing comparisons and confusing similarities in a play of mirrors in which each tries to find his
or her lost connections.
Amid the tension maintained by the pressures of Paul‘s illness, and aware both how little time they have and
how increasingly intimate they have become, the two characters are caught up in the same intense emotions
that first brought them together. Seduction, the language of love, dependence, break-ups, physical passion,
danger and excess, age differences, cultural divides… these are the themes around which Céleste and Paul
revolve, he as a Spinoza-following philosopher, she as a woman exalted by love.
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“Contre mes seuls ennemis”
Specifications
―Blue series‖
208 pages
Rights available
The book
The year is 2025.
A young researcher, Basil Archimedes, discovers a modified micro-organism gradually invading the
building for microbiological research and its laboratories where he works. The microbe appears to be non
toxic either to plants or humans. No one understands how it works….
Basil, a very imaginative individual who works on the theory of communication between living species,
puts forward various hypotheses and, to test them, asks for help from Jacinthe Le Tan, a stunning colleague
he would dearly love to seduce.
Against a background of transgenic viruses and laboratory in-fighting, the action unfolds around this
intrigue of the heart and of science.
In this novel of scientific premonitions, Isabelle Jarry returns to her training as a biologist. She questions the
science of today and in the future, using a facetious writing style and exuberant language.
“La traversée du désert”
Specifications
―Blue series‖
236 pages
Rights available
The book
Major Alexander Laing was the first European to reach Timbuktu in August 1826. Starting from Tripoli
where he left behind the young woman he had recently married, he traveled three thousand kilometers
through the Sahara before he entered the mythical city. But the adventure turned into a nightmare. On the
way back, Laing was assassinated. The discovery of this ‗pearl of the desert‘ would be attributed two years
later to a Frenchman, René Caillié.
Botanist Gabriel Barthomieux is forever recounting this tragic expedition. Young photographer Ariane
follows him into the desert wondering what is so fascinating about Laing. Finally, Gabriel convinces her to
write a novel about him. After all, the ―Laing file‖ could not be more dramatic: unfulfilled love, horrific
assassination, documents that mysteriously vanish, all unraveling in a Saharan setting, against a backdrop of
diplomatic incidents. Ariane will soon understand that this story leads deep into the secret of amorous
passion.
Jarry‘s La traversée du désert is both a completely engrossing novel and a book that offers its reader the
chance to embark on an essential inner journey.
“Millefeuille de onze ans”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
232 pages
Rights available
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The book
How and why does one become a writer? Is there an event, or a person that originates such a vocation?
What sort of madness or arrogance hides behind this curious activity?
When one of her manuscripts was rejected by her editor, Isabelle Jarry thought her life as a writer – this life
she had led for so long - was finished. Millefeuille de onze ans grew out of this awful moment of disillusion,
as an exploration of the doubts and incomprehension that a writer experiences when facing failure. Going
back to the year when, as an eleven year old girl, she first knew the passion for writing, the novelist
rediscovers the lightness and grace that she experienced as a dreamy girl fascinated by nature.
It is between Montmartre and Clichy, in the dawn of the 1970s, that young Isabelle discovers the world, and
books. Under the guise of the good pupil, she hides her unruly nature. She dreams of freedom and of being a
solitary adventurer. In her note books, she invents an exciting universe, ―creates her own spectacle,‖ to
escape the routine of her peaceful childhood.
Through the elegant and precise style of Millefeuille de onze ans, the sources of a novelist‘s imagination and
curiosity are beautifully evoked.
“J’ai nom sans bruit”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
216 pages
Rights sold
(Fraktura)
to:
Germany
(Ullstein),
Croatia
The book
At the end of her resources and after spending several months living on the streets, Marie leaves Paris to live
in the country. She leaves behind her five year old daughter in an institution for children. Since the death of
her husband, Marie has lived in constant grief and solitude. She was a poet, but no longer writes. Poetry
could not help her. Isolated in a small house, she thinks only of retrieving her daughter. She must undergo
one more ordeal though, and that is the loss of words. She looses the capacity of speech and can no longer
communicate. Her distress has taken away her most precious possession.
This superb novel deals with the loss of a loved one and of what gives life its meaning. It also criticizes a
society in which creativity is in danger, meaning is diluted and in which hope dwindles. Marie dedicated her
life to art and refused the tyranny of money. She would rather live in discomfort and austerity than let
herself be corrupted. The purity of this luminous character and her wisdom, as strong as it is universal, will
move the reader.
Le jardin Yamata (1999) and George Orwell, cent ans d‟anticipation (2003). Please contact our foreign
***
Vincent JULLIEN
The author
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Vincent Jullien, lectures in history and philosophy of sciences at the university of Nantes, and he is the
president of the ‗Société française d‟histoire des sciences et des techniques‘. He has recently published
―Sciences agents doubles‖ (Stock, 2002) and ―Histoire du calcul des longitudes‖ (PUR, 2002). ―Les ombres
de la place Royale‖ is his first novel.
His work at Stock
“Les ombres de la place Royale”
Specifications
Historical novel
504 pages
Rights available
The book
1612. France is only starting to recover from the wars of religion. Young René Descartes, who is then
studying in Rennes, attends a party in a castle near Brest. There, his presence changes the destiny of three
people: Tucdual Cadiou, a Jesuit priest, young baroness Marie de Kerlech with whom Descartes starts a
secret affair, and a small, precocious beggar boy: Gilbert Le Person. A few years later, still fascinated by
Descartes, Gilbert leaves his native village of Porspoder and goes to Paris – the then capital of sciences and
new philosophy. Included in the exclusive circle of the place Royale, he makes the acquaintance of Blaise
Pascal whose sister Jacqueline is, unhappily, a disciple of the rival movement of Port Royal.
Controversy rages about the world system, the existence of void or light. While philosophers debate,
religious fanatics operate in the shadow, ready to do anything to silence them. Gilbert Le Person has no
choice but to confront them so that the rights of love, science and philosophy are upheld.
A book in the style of the XVIIth century philosophical novel: from Blaise Pascal‘s experiments with
physics – before he had become fully committed to the Jansenists‘ cause, to the celebration of Descartes‘
metaphysics, Vincent Jullien recounts, through a series of picaresque adventures and love stories, the
everlasting war between reason and obscurantism, between science and philosophy and religion.
***
Luc LANG
The author
Luc Lang is the author of six novels, amongst which Mille six cents ventres (Prix Goncourt des lycéens in
1998) and La fin des paysages (2006). His latest work, Cruels, 13 is a collection of fables and was published
by Stock in 2008.
His works at Stock
“Esprit chien”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
272 pages
Rights available
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PUBLISHED BY STOCK
The book
Nothing. There won‘t be a spa and certainly not a casino springing up on the Buzzati‘s land. Dante Buzzati
won‘t be diddled. This family property in Neuilly-sur-Seine was won by his father Ettore with the sweat of
his brow and brilliance with dogs.
Sadly, there is one problem for Dante‘s great plans: women. So when a manipulative, icy beauty called
Anne-Laure Chinon moves in next door with her baggage of a troubled childhood, his furious defence of his
family inheritance takes a bit of a knock.
An ambiguous relationship evolves between this son of a one-armed labourer and his smart semi-detached
neighbour, by turns cordial, intimate and professional. Even though Dante, a graphic designer by trade, has
abandoned plans to pursue his father‘s search for canine psychology, much to his beloved daughter‘s
exasperation he now launches himself into a project orchestrated by his flamboyant neighbour: a workshop
sought-after by anyone who‘s anyone in Neuilly, and dedicated exclusively to man‘s best friend, a centre for
absurd holistico-mystical experiments in which master and dog become one. A non-profit making
organisation… heading straight for financial disaster.
A funny, dark, tongue-in-cheek novel, bringing a canine mirror up to our contemporary world with all its
cruelty, intrigue, cynicism and mercilessness; a place where people go into raptures about their own vacuity.
On every level linguistic as well as symbolic this book explores our relationship with animals and the
ways in which we perceive animality.
“Cruels, 13”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
160 pages
Rights sold to : Italy (Quadrup), USA (University of
Nebraska / World Rights)
The book
With fifteen ferocious fables, Luc Lang seizes and conjugates the brutality of the contemporary world in all
its shades: it is funny, sad, tragic, ridiculous, or painful, it is always pitiless…
The married couple, the family, but also business firms, the neighbourhood, the city or the roadway are all
places which serve as a scenery for these bitter tales.
In turn, we‘ll be the bastard who sows nastiness like bees sow pollen, the victim who suffers from the
savageness of others, or we get caught in a trap without wanting to.
Cruels, 13 is a depiction of the present, dispersed in a jigsaw puzzle of cruelties from which no one,
eventually, escapes. We laugh, we cry, we grind our teeth.
“La fin des paysages”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
The book
504 pages
Rights available
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While putting the finishing touches to the exhibition ‗One century of Africanism‘, Martin Finley has to start
an investigation: African art pieces have been stolen as they were being unloaded from a cargo boat in the
Liverpool marina. Thus begins the confrontation between the captain of a marina that is losing its business,
and museum through which men who would like to transform the dockyard into a place for cultural
activities. The confrontation is also that of two brothers: Abel, the exhibition organiser, and Jason, the artist
from black Africa. And on each continent, a woman: Julia and Alice, two loves for two men, the one who
stays and the one who leaves.
“11 septembre mon amour”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
247 pages
Rights sold to: China (Chinese complex characters,
Bertelsmann Asia)
The book
On September 11, 2001, Luc Lang is in the United States, in the backwoods of Montana on the trail of the
Blackfeet Indians. At the Browning reserve, where he is staying, he experiences the spectacle of the
airplanes crashing into the Twin Towers on television. He was looking for Indians and instead found an
entire country in shock, wounded, traumatised, but also preparing its weapons and planning its revenge. 11
septembre mon amour is the account of a week spent at the heart of History. It is a road movie in a pick-up
truck which takes the reader through landscapes of overwhelming beauty, through the USA of yesterday and
today. The book is divided into five parts, five hallucinatory texts retracing Luc Lang‘s journey where the
weapon-obsessed America of Michael Moore coexists with the schizophrenic America of Philip Roth.
“Les Indiens”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
424 pages
Rights available
The book
Lucas Lancry is forty two years old and is an engineer with the EDF (the French national electricity
company). One day he wakes up to find himself in a hospital bed with his legs and his pelvis paralysed. He
had been working on high tension wires when he fell to the ground, fifty eight metres below. At the
Salpêtrière hospital and, subsequently at the centre for the re-education of people who have been
handicapped, the visits of parents, friends, doctors and colleagues follow one after another. These meetings
are often hilarious, and often lead to reminiscences of childhood and adolescence. Lucas reflects on the
weakness of the body and the failings of technology, which are brought together in a mix of humour and
gravity.
***
Yves LAPLACE
The author
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Yves Laplace was born in Geneva in 1958. A committed essay-writer and playwright, he has published
L‟inséminateur (2001), Les dépossédés (2001), Les hautes œuvres (2001), Un mur cache la guerre (2003),
L'Homme exemplaire (2004), L‟Original (2004) and Butin (2006) with Stock.
His works at Stock
“Butin”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
288 pages
Rights available
The book
Butin is a tale of passion, the story of a bedazzlement and a heartbreak. Maud, the ardent libertine, has left,
and the narrator holds true to the promise he made: that if she disappeared, he would write about her. He
confides his despair to his cousin, Bernard, a collector of women who is immune to desire as well as
jealousy. Two voices are thus confronted, two philosophies of sex and love: Bernard‘s inflexible discourse,
both incorrect and provocative and that of his cousin trapped in the vertigo of l‟amour fou. The obscure
Bernard, the luminous Maud – two characters who incarnate in turn the conflict in which the narrator is
caught.
Once more, Yves Laplace leads us astray. He belongs to a family of writers who, from Céline to Bataille,
choose to ignore moral standards in order to fully express the tragedy of human existence. In his
sophisticated and delightful style, Laplace thus explores the dangerous zones that lay at the edges of our
fantasies.
“L’original”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
234 pages
Rights available
The book
Bernard, a.k.a. Bernie, a.k.a. The Nonconformist, is a chronic temp, a freedom-lover, and a sex addict.
―Four wives and a thousand prostitutes‖ Bernie is a collector of women who knows no jealousy, since
faithfulness is a betrayal of oneself. In a baroque and colourful style, he recounts his impetuosity as a
rebellious teenager, his job as assistant male nurse and an interest in photography. In the same blithe tone,
he writes about solitary hikes in the mountains and sexual jaunts in third world countries.
The narrator is Bernie‘s cousin writing Bernie‘s real or imagined life. An unseemly and disturbing cousin
whom he neither judges nor condemns. In this way, he prolongs his cousin‘s childhood notebooks in which
he consigned family-related or sports events and wrote descriptions of the members of the tribe. With this
character who sees himself as emancipated and liberated, Yves Laplace explores the dark side of human
nature which goes against morality.
“Un mur cache la guerre”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
188 pages
Rights available
The book
In the midst of the Risoud forest, in the mountainous region of the Jura, a stone wall 150 km long marks the
border between France and Switzerland. Un mur cache la guerre tells the story of three young people during
World War II, lost among members of the Resistance, traitors, Germans, smugglers and other fugitives who
go over the wall to one side or the other. As the 21st century opens, a visitor from Switzerland meets these
three people and collects their words, their thoughts and their writing, conjuring up voices from the past.
―L’homme exemplaire ‖ (2004), ―L’inséminateur ‖ (2001) and ―Les hautes oeuvres‖ (2001; rights sold
to Korea). Please contact our foreign rights department for further information.
***
Blandine LE CALLET
The author
Blandine Le Callet was born in 1969. Une pièce montée is her first novel and was an instant success in
France and abroad. A film adaptation is forthcoming.
Her works at Stock
“La Ballade de Lila K” – Prix des lecteurs des écrivains du Sud 2011
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
400 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Ullstein), Greece (Polis),
Italy (Barbes), Estonia (Eesti Ramat), Poland (Sonia
Draga, Russia (Pokolenie)
The book
The Ballad of Lila K is primarily a voice: the voice of a sensitive yet caustic, fragile yet willful young
woman telling her story from the day when a team of men dressed in black brutally snatched her from her
mother, and took her to a Center (half boarding school, half prison) where she was held.
Gifted, asocial and traumatised, Lila has forgotten everything of her former life. She has just one obsession:
finding her mother and recapturing her lost memories.
So begins her chaotic apprenticeship in a peculiarly off-kilter world where her safety now seems guaranteed
but where books are no longer allowed.
During an enquiry that takes her beyond the bounds of what is legal, Lila gradually uncovers her past and
finally learns what happened to her mother. Her trajectory brings her into contact with many characters,
including an erudite and provocative schoolmaster, an educator who is as conventional as he is devoted, a
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depressive cellist longing for a child, a vicious concierge, a disfigured young man, a mysterious bibliophile,
a multicoloured cat…
A rites of passage book in which suspense mingles with a disturbing love story, The Ballad of Lila K also
explores the question of how our society is evolving and what may come of it.
“Une pièce montée”
Specifications
324 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Ullstein), Italy (Salani),
Greece (Polis), Estonia (Eesti Raamat), The
Netherlands (Archipel), Russia (Fluide), Spain
(Maeva), Serbia (Laguna), Algeria (French language
rights, Sédia), China (Yingpan Brother), Czech
Republic (Host), Taiwan (Aquarius), Korea
(Munhakdongne), Poland (Sonia Draga), Turkey
(Epsilon).
The book
The backdrop to Une pièce montée is a country-side wedding amongst the provincial middle-class. Each
chapter focuses on one of the party‘s protagonists, each story in turn finding its own place both in the family
album, and in the chronology of this special day. From the bridesmaid who confronts injustice to the priest
besieged by his own demons in front of a mystified assembly, to the colleague as incurable flirt and the
eccentric aunt looking for love, to the naughty grand-mother and the hysterical bride… A colourful
succession of characters mingle through a series of funny, cruel or moving scenes where people are
unmasked and family secrets revealed. Une pièce montée unravels like a fast pace comedy, as if, rather than
mere spectators, we ourselves were amongst the guests, invited to share in the impertinent pleasure offered
by this first novel.
***
Justine LÉVY
The author
Justine Lévy has written to novels: Le rendez-vous (Plon, 1995) and Rien de grave (Stock, 2004).
Her work at Stock
“Rien de grave” – Awarded the Prix Marie-France and the Prix Vaudeville
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
196 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Frassinelli), Germany (Antje
Kunstmann), Serbia (Globosino), USA (Melville
House, English world rights), The Netherlands
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(Prometheus), Portugal (Ulisseia), Bulgaria (Pulsio),
China (simplified characters, Lijiang), Taiwan
(complex characters, The Commercial Press), Spain
(Ambar), Albania (Dituria), Korea (Courrier),
Poland (Sonia Draga), Czech Republic (Jota), Russia
(Makbel), Turkey (Epsilon)
The book
Since Adrien has left her, Louise has lost desire, joy and interest in life. She has lost the courage to be
happy, to be unhappy, to be anxious. Louise and Adrien have known each other since their adolescence,
they have loved each other like children, unconditionally. Until the day Adrien meets the young mistress of
his father, Paula, the ideal woman. Since then, Louise has abandoned life. She lives and does not live, waits
and does not wait. This could have lasted for month, for years…only a new love can bring Louise back to
life and to the miracle of existence…
“Mauvaise fille”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: Septembre 2009
198 pages
Rights sold to: China (Shangai Literature and Art),
Germany (Antje Kunstmann), Italy (Frassinelli),
Korea (Vision B&P), The Netherlands
(Prometheus/Bert Bakker), Poland (Sonia Draga),
Romania (Nemira), Sweden (Sekwa), Taiwan
(The Commercial Press), Turkey (Epsilon)
The book
Justine Lévy‘s third novel could have been called A Question of Timing. As Louise is about to give birth to
her first child, her mother Alice dies. She could have chosen yet another title: Back to Front Daughter,
Inside Out Mother. When Louise goes to announce the imminent birth of her daughter Angèle to her
mother, who is holed up in a hospital room, the impossible Alice is completely determined she is wrong. A
little girl can‘t be pregnant. As far as Alice is concerned, Louise has never grown up. She is the result of a
childhood romance which didn‘t last long but from which even Louise‘s father probably never recovered. If
Louise grows up, then Alice will no longer be loved.
Not long after her mother‘s death, Louise finds her notebook and realises that, apart from indelible
memories, this jumbled sentimental diary is the only thing she has left. It is up to her to piece together this
woman ‘s fractured life just when she is picturing the future for her little Angèle.
As these pages unfold, the hundreds of thousands of readers who enjoyed Rien de grave will recognise some
of the characters. A bad daughter… really? As usual, Justine Lévy does not cast herself in a good role. Still
treading the shaky tightrope of tragi-comedy and with a welcome dose of impropriety, she creates her own
style, her own world.
***
Isabelle LORTHOLARY
The author
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Isabelle Lortholary was born in 1967 and lives in Paris. She is a journalist and literary critic at the magazine
Elle. Heureuse, ou presque is her first book.
Her works at Stock
“Heureuse, ou Presque”
Specifications
120 pages
Rights available
The book
Heureuse, ou presque is a collection of short stories. Some describe brief scenes of daily life, others unravel
over several days or months. Each focuses on a woman, a mother, a daughter or a sister, confronted to
fragile and testing moments of their existence (being a twin, marriage, maternity and giving birth).
Through these portraits, both moving and funny, Isabelle Lortholary offers a complex exploration of
femininity. How does one become a woman, and what kind of a woman does one become?
The testimonies of all these women, courageous, confused, in love, weave together a tapestry of feminine
voices that ultimately form but one thread, one message: almost happy.
***
Paul LOUBIERE
The author
Paul Loubière has a PhD in philosophy and ethnography and works as a reporter for Challenges, a journal
specializing in issues of energy and petrol. He teaches mathematics and logic at the university of Paris-8.
Assassinat sous X is his third crime novel.
His work
“Assassinat sous X”
Specifications
308 pages
Rights available
The book
Look for the victim, not for the assassin! This is the rather unusual challenge that Pierre Brassac, a young
lieutenant recently graduated from the police school, has to face. Nothing happens according to the
customary scenario: the assassin agrees to give himself up but only on the condition that he is told who it is
he killed – a mysterious victim that nothing permits to identify… Pierre Brassac finds himself caught in an
incredible machination, and discovers the hidden face of the oil business and its obscure multinational
companies. Some are not happy with oil only and take advantage of their multiple locations abroad to traffic
with strange and highly profitable substances.
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The central character of Paul Loubière‘s new novel is a beginner lieutenant who has to deal with a hierarchy
that appears as Machiavellian as the criminals he pursues. Loubière gives a convincing and powerful
description of the complexity of today‘s oil business.
***
Yves MAMOU
The author
Yves Mamou is a journalist for Le Monde. Camélia.came is his first novel.
His work
Camelia.came
Specifications
324 pages
Rights available
The book
A black youth, who works for a major internet flower delivery service, dies in an explosion on an estate at
the periphery of Paris.
A commando of Columbian assassins arrives in the French capital in search of hundreds of kilograms of
cocaine.
Islamic terrorists in hiding in a renowned Paris hotel wait in vain for a message from their local contact.
A Columbian engineer invents a new means of passing drug undetectably.
A young woman is abducted.
The diverse trajectories of these characters should not cross, yet… Superintendent Martucci joins forces
with an agent from the Drug Enforcement Administration, to investigate.
***
Hélène MILLERAND
The author
Hélène Millerand was born in Versailles in 1945. She has published two books at Editions du Seuil: Les
carnets d‟une coquette raisonnable (1992) and Renonce avec grâce à la jeunesse (2002). Her first novel,
Vieille France (Stock, 2004), which recounts the life of a governess in France in the 1940s, met with a great
deal of attention. A television-adaptation is forthcoming. With Modern solitude Millerand delivers once
more a portrait of a moving and complex woman.
Her works at Stock
“Quartier du Temple”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
260 pages
Rights available
The book
October 13th 1857, on a scorching hot day in a Paris turned upside down by Haussman‘s improvements
commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III.
Maxime, newly arrived from Normandy to study at the Conservatoire of Music, is walking over to a
fountain when a young woman calls out to warn him it is not safe to drink the water in Paris. Her name is
Fanny Herschel. Young, Jewish, intractable, she has the same eyes as the famous actress Rachel: huge and
very black. And she too hopes she can break free from her situation, from hostility towards her people and
from her father‘s brutal authority.
Those same eyes will meet Maxime‘s again in the Quartier du Temple (the Temple Quarter in Paris), on the
edge of a building site, during a concert, in the crowds around Rachel‘s burial…
Following an attempted assassination of the emperor, Maxime, who has befriended a Republican, needs to
escape the capital, and manages to with Fanny‘s help. Coping with a secret pregnancy, and engaged to a
widower whom she won‘t allow herself to marry, the young girl stands proud and alone as she takes her fate
into her own hands.
After Vieille France and Modern Solitude, Hélène Millerand paints another portrait of an endearing and
complex woman. A passionate woman who wants to see herself free to live and love despite the ups and
downs of her life. The author brings an old quarter of Paris bursting to life again.
“Modern solitude”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
192 pages
Rights available
The book
September 1981. Carmen Diaz is six years old, her brother Ramon is eight. They live in the 6th district of
Paris where they befriend Damien Boyerdrey. The Boyerdreys represent everything Carmen‘s parents
loathe: money linked with corruption. Yet Carmen is seduced by the elegance of Brigitte Boyerdrey and
becomes convinced that she had better choose the side of the powerful rather than work and campaign for
the Communist Party like her mother.
Courageous and wilful, Carmen is very successful at school. She goes off to study in Edinburgh for a year
and then enrols at HEC, one of the most prestigious private business schools in France. In spite of her fling
with the handsome Donald Leely in Scotland, she continues to feel strongly attached to ―the boys‖ at home:
her brother Ramon and his two friends Damien and Robert. If only she could keep them for herself,
forever…
In June 1998 she finishes third of her year at HEC. To some, she represents a perfect example of middle
class bourgeoisie, to others, she remains the daughter of proletarians. In any case, she loves money and is
not ashamed of claiming this out loud. People are afraid of her and reproach her for being cruel. She hasn‘t
been in touch with her mother for a year.
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During twenty years, we observe the life of this pretty girl and ―her boys‖; a proud and solitary girl who
―betrays‖ the convictions her parents stand for. Twenty years during which we witness the fall of
communism and the end of the ideals of previous generations.
“Vieille France”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
196 pages
Rights available
The book
1938. Young Bénédicte Drot, daughter of an upper class versaillois family, gives birth to a child with an
unknown father. Chased away from her family, Bénédicte decides to become a governess. She is employed
by Ernest and Antoinette Treives, a rich Jewish family to look after their young son Maximilien. Bénédicte
is 26 years old. She is catholic and respects tradition and would never give up her anti-Semitic prejudices.
Nevertheless, between 1938 and 1945, she becomes indispensable to the family she lives with and which is
profoundly disrupted by World War II. ―Vieille France‖ tells Bénédicte‘s story, the story of a strong
woman, deeply attached to the boy she is responsible for and truly faithful to his mother. But neither
Maximilien nor Antoinette will ever know Bénédicte‘s secret…
***
Catherine MILLET
The author
Catherine Millet is chief editor at Art Press. In 2001, she published La vie sexuelle de Catherine M., which
was extremely successful is France and abroad.
Her work at Stock
“Riquet à la houppe, Millet à la loupe”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
80 pages
Rights sold to: Romania (Zemlick)
The book
―Isn‘t it voluptuous as an adult to rediscover one‘s childhood storybooks? Not so much because of a desire
to regress, as a psychoanalyst might say, but simply to dream one‘s dreams more fully. Today, I am more
intellectually capable to recognise the desires that haunted me when I was six years old but was then unable
to express. I can finally say how much I love Riquet above all! Riquet who was ‗so ugly and so awkwardly
made that for a long time, it was doubtful whether he was of human form.‘ And I must admit that I would
have preferred that the Beast never turn into the Handsome Prince.‖ The new version of an old fairy tale…
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***
Eva Kristina MINDSZENTI
The author
Eva Kristina Mindszenti was born in 1974 of a Hungarian father and a Norwegian mother, in a family of
artists and painters. She is an ink illustrator and a photographer, and lives in Toulouse.
Her work at Stock
“Les inattendus”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
96 pages
Rights available
The book
This is the story of a young girl, writing from Hoferer, a Hungarian village close to the border with
Slovakia. Alone, with her parents‘ orchard as her sole horizon, she decides to go and work at the hospital
where the Tchernobyl children, handicapped, ill and mutilated, are being treated. She quickly comes to love
these children, who won‘t even have the time to become unhappy; these children who die at the age of ten;
who sometimes cry because nobody visits them anymore. She loves them because she knows that it is them
who are going to cure her, to help her with her pain. The book never resembles a Hungarian version of
« Freaks ». It never calls for pity. It is the crude but tranquil style of this text that makes it so affecting; the
artlessness with which the author starts to empathise with her little patients to the point of wanting to look
like them.
No other book has described so truthfully the political disbelief, the loss of pleasure, with, as sole
background, the music of soviet animation movies that continue to show on TV. No one had managed to
express with such dignified sadness the feeling of dereliction and inferiority of the former republics of the
USSR which continue to receive, like the forgotten countries of Africa, out-of-date medicines.
The novelist has only one soothing feeling: to know that she can love and write
***
Jean Michel MOREL
The author
Born in Paris in 1947, Jean-Michel Morel obtained a degree in Film Studies and Linguistics. He published
his first novel Les porteurs d‟orage at Flammarion and a children‘s book entitled Makha Kishnu, l‟homme
qui voulait posséder tous les chevaux (Editions Points de suspension) before publishing Le prix du pardon
with Stock.
His work at Stock
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“Le prix du pardon”
Specifications
Historical novel
504 pages
Rights available
The book
In 1890, Lester, a New York policeman, decides to go west with his son, Louis Morghana. After Lester‘s
death at the battle of Wounded Knee, Louis is taken in and brought up by Simon Charuel, the son of a
French man and an Indian Kiowa woman. A man of the wilderness, he teaches the boy how to survive in a
hostile environment, how to make himself invisible. He nicknames the boy Belle-Ombre (‗Beautiful
Shadow‘). But Louis remains haunted by the memory of his mother, Jeanne, abandoned in Bretagne where
he was born. He decides to find her, and his quest takes him from Mexico to California at the beginning of
Hollywood, then to the Paris of the anarchists and Ireland at the time of the revolt of 1916. The war and the
trenches in Argonne follow, and then forced labour in Cayenne. .. During the sixteen years that his trip lasts,
Louis meets women who, in one way or another, show him that a man does not need violence to be himself.
But Louis started this travelling in order to expiate his faults, and he becomes progressively convinced that
his mother alone can absolve him. Such is the price of forgiveness.
Le Prix du pardon is an original, wide-ranging saga that spans the history of the twentieth century from its
infancy to 1930.
***
Emmanuel MOSES
The author
Emmanuel Moses was born in 1959 in Casablanca. He grew up in Paris and its surroundings before settling
in Jerusalem in 1969 with his family. In 1986, he leaves Israel to return to Paris where he tries his hand at
various jobs (worker in a socio-cultural centre, journalist, editor). He now shares his time between
translating and writing. He is a novelist (―Papernik,‖ Grasset, 1992), a short-story writer (―Adieu Lewinter,‖
Denoël, 2000) and a poet.
His works at Stock
“Les Tabor”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
444 pages
Rights available
The book
The year is 1937. The Tabors, a Jewish family from Berlin, have moved to Amsterdam when the Nazis
seized power. Léo and Julia, both lawyers, live with their young son, Zacharie, in a small furnished flat, and,
like all the other exiles, they are looking for work. Julia is a radiant, loving and spirited woman. Léo is an
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idealist. Still profoundly affected by his experience of the war front at the ‗Chemin des Dames,‘ he is drawn
towards the socialists and the anarchists. Progressively, intolerance gains ground in the city where they have
sought refuge, and the future looms uncertainly. In these troubled times of persecutions and arbitrary arrests,
the Tabors obstinately hang on to their belief in the unalterable beauty of existence. This is one of the
book‘s enchanting facets. Neither humiliation nor treason can dent the faith in freedom and justice of this
wonderful couple. To the surrounding brutality and cynicism, Emmanuel Moses opposes the melancholy but
also joyful and feisty world of these hopeful, determined exiles.
***
Dominique MULLER
The author
Dominique Muller was born in Strasbourg and lives in Venice. She is the author of Brave petite (Seuil,
1986), Danger public (Seuil, 1988), C‟était le paradis (Seuil, 1993, prix Roger Nimier), Le meilleur de la
vie (Fayard, 1995), Les filles prodigues (Seuil, 2000), Désormais Venise (2005, Seuil). She is a regular
contributor to France Culture‘s Sunday broadcast ―Les Papous dans la tête.‖
Her work at Stock
“Lire la notice et vivre ensuite”
Specifications
234 pages
Rights available
The book
It was such a hot summer, people were getting crazy. Sabine Lachenay had decided to join Rocky on one of
the Cyclades islands. Why not accept to be seduced this presumptuous small-time speculator since Rocco,
the man she loves, prefers men?
What happened next – Loulou and her colorful necklaces, the wall collapsing on the cliff, Olympus in
flames – she has forgotten: none of it was her fault.
But before then, she remembers herself as a free young woman, a volatile, absent mother, a happy woman
with a man who disappeared too early. And before then she was the little girl in that story of a couple
separating that Truffaut brought to the screen. What she knows today is that one evening in August her rage
went up in smoke and that she, at last, found peace.
Lire la notice et vivre ensuite recounts the dreams and disappointments of a woman hungry for happiness
and pleasure. Dominique Muller‘s book is a sharp, humorous depiction of a comedy of love that ends up as
tragedy.
***
Taslima NASREEN
The author
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Born in 1962 in East Pakistan, Taslima Nasreen had to flee Bangaldesh in the 1990s because of her criticism
of the Islamic faith and religion in general. After having stayed in exile in Paris and Stockholm for years,
she finally settled in India.
Her work at Stock
“Enfance, au féminin”
Specifications
460 pages
Rights sold to: USA (Steerforth Press), India (Kali for
women), Germany (Rowohlt)
The book
Condemned to exile and wandering, a woman looks back on her past and in particular her early years, a
childhood about which she does not get too emotional, but takes a lucid and indulgent adult glance. What
Taslima is trying to show through the evocation of her memories is the underside of girls‘ education in her
natal Bangladesh, and the sexist bent that characterizes it. Early on, little Taslima becomes aware of the
discriminatory attitude that weighs on her. Very quickly, this rebellious spirit expresses its first revolts
against the establishment, against the system designed to restrain her entire life.
***
Irène NEMIROVSKY
The author
In 1929, Irène Némirovsky‘s first novel, David Golder, was published in France. The Russian Jewish
immigrant was only 26 years old at the time, but her immense talent as a writer was recognized
immediately. Her second novel, Le Bal, published in 1930, confirmed that talent. While these remain her
most widely read books, Némirovsky wrote nearly a dozen others until she was deported to Auschwitz
where she died in 1942. She also wrote a number of short stories which were published in various
newspapers and magazines.
Her work at Stock
“Dimanche”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
374 pages
Rights sold to: China (Shangai 99), Finland
(Gummerus), Italy (Adelphi), Spain (Salamandra),
UK (Persephone).
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The book
Dimanche brings together fifteen of Irène Némirovsky‘s short stores which were published in various
newspapers and magazines between 1934 and 1942.
***
Florence NOIVILLE
The author
Florence Noiville is a journalist for Le Monde. She published Isaac B. Singer (awarded the Récit
biographique-prize) in 2003 with Stock. She is also the author of several children books. La donation is her
first novel.
Her works at Stock
“La donation”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
140 pages
Rights sold to: Greece (Oceanida), Italy (Garzanti),
Lebanon (Ecole de traducteurs et d‘interprètes de
Beyrouth),
USA
(Northwestern
University
Press/World Rights)
The book
―Some people see the story of their life unravel as they are about to die. Others experience this on an
analyst‘s couch. In my case, the revelation took place all of a sudden, in the office of a solicitor.‖
This novel tells the story of a donation inter vivos that takes an unexpected turn. This is because the bequest,
in this case, does not merely concern material things: what is really at stake is an inner patrimony, a painful
family secret that has been buried deep. Hereditary illnesses of the soul do not come free of death duties…
***
Erik ORSENNA
The author
Winner of the Goncourt prize for L‟Exposition coloniale (Seuil, 1988), Erik Orsenna is one of France‘s most
popular contemporary authors. His books have all met with popular and critical acclaim. His recent
publications include: Les chevaliers du subjonctif (Stock 2004), Portraits du Gulf Stream (Seuil 2005),
Voyage au pays du coton (Fayard 2006), Salut au grand sud (with Isabelle Autissier, 2006), La révolte des
accents (2007) and La chanson de Charles Quint (2008).
His works at Stock
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“L’entreprise des Indes”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
400 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Beck), Greece (Diamantis),
Hungary (Ab Ovo), Italy (Ponte Alle Grazie),
Portugal (Teorema), Spain (Tusquets), Taiwan (YeRen), UK (Haus), Korea (Sol), China (Jilin Publishing
Group), Romania (IBU PUblishing), Serbie (Laguna)
The book
―On 13th August 1476, the ship commanded by Christopher Columbus is shipwrecked off the Portuguese
coast. The future admiral has just turned twenty-five. Miraculously, he manages to reach the coast, and finds
refuge in Lisbon with his younger brother, Bartholomew, who works as a cartographer.
Ever since the beginning of the Fifteenth Century, the world has been opening up, and Portugal is the
driving force behind this. The Renaissance is starting with far-flung expeditions. Taking their impetus from
Henry the Navigator, caravels leave every month to explore the coasts of Africa. Lisbon, the capital of
knowledge, is a melting pot for every profession associated with discovery: mathematicians specialising in
the skies, cosmographers, geographers, shipwrights, makers of navigational tools… cartographers.
For eight whole years, the two brothers work together, planning the journey Christopher has been dreaming
of since his adolescence: the Indes Venture, heading for Cipango (Japan) and the empire of the Great Khan
(China). But, instead of the usual route, the silk route to the east, they will tackle the oceans due West.
In 1484, their project is rejected by the Committee of Scholars who advise King John II. Which is why
Christopher tried his luck with the Spanish monarchs, Isabelle and Ferdinand.
A master cartographer, a rhinoceros, a widow maker, a schoolmistress for birds, a slow-witted woman, a
prostitute known principally for the quality of her ears, Marco Polo, a few Dominicans, Indian-eating
dogs… these are just some of the secondary characters in this book.
I wanted to get involved in this little-known period in the history of human curiosity. A time when a new
freedom was born and, simultaneously, the Inquisition was developing and the Jews were being driven out.
The years when the integrity of the planet was gradually understood, heralding the first globalisation which
would not be long coming.
To achieve this, I allowed myself to give a voice to the younger brother, Bartholomew. He is the one
narrating: he is a party to and the principal witness of the Venture from its very inception. He is also the one
asking important questions: how and why did the commendable passion for Discovery turn into genocide of
the Indians? What is the point of discovering if you kill what you find?‖
Erik Orsenna
“La chanson de Charles Quint”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
The book
There were two brothers.
194 pages
Rights sold to: China (Jilin), Italy (Salani), Bulgaria
(Stigmati) and Germany (Beck)
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The youngest one had but one love. The love of his youth. A lover who went away for a while and came
back, and whom he married, thirty years on, so that they could grow old together – so that they could help
each other as they faced the approach of death.
The oldest, on his good days, would convince himself that he also had been in love. Was it his fault if this
love, and the force of the feelings that grew inside him, had become fragmented, split between a multitude
of faces and all too similar bodies? Yet every other day, and every night without a miss, he knew that he had
never loved.
And so lived the two brothers, in the same town but on either side of the river: the brother with the
fragmented love, the eldest, and his younger brother, the brother with the single love.
“Dernières nouvelles des oiseaux”
Specifications
133 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Salani), Korea (Samtoh),
Thailand (Priew)
The book
A man decides one day to create a special award for children passionate by something unusual and
following impossible dreams. Seven children are selected by the ―European foundation of passion‖ and sent
to a mysterious island. Javier, Morwenna, Etienne, Victoria, Thomas, Hillary and Hans will find themselves
involved in an incredible adventure. The island is beaten by a violent storm and the children loose all
connections to their European home countries. They need to put together all their talents, abilities, forces
and dreams to find a way to leave the island. Which one of them has been pronouncing the word
―aeroplane‖ for the first time?
“Les chevaliers du subjonctif”
Specifications
192 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Salani), Portugal (ASA)
The book
The young characters of La grammaire est une chanson douce have grown up but the Archipelago of Words
is still under the dictatorship of President Necrole. One day, Thomas disappears and Jeanne is arrested.
Saved by the official cartographer of the island, she leaves with him on an exciting journey aboard a handglider to find her brother. They land on the Isle of Subjunctive, which harbours the sworn enemies of
Necrole. With the help of these joyous rebels, Jeanne discovers the power of imagination. She learns that
love – which will strike even the heart of the fearsome state inspector, Mrs. Jargonos – is also a variety of
the subjunctive, the grammatical mood of dreams and desires.
Much more than a grammar lesson, the adventure of discovering words through the tenses is also a deep and
splendid lesson of life. Curious and daring, Jeanne is the perfect guide to this exploration of the subtleties of
language. To read the world, that ―immense library‖ and to share it with others, what could be more
exciting?
“Madame Bâ”
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Specifications
484 pages
For more information, please contact FAYARD
PUBLISHING HOUSE
The book
Madame Bâ Marguerite is from Mali, born in the city of Medina on the banks of the River Senegal. In order
to find her grandson who was swallowed by the ogre of football and has disappeared in France, she applies
for a visa. Application refused. So she writes directly to the President of France. She scrupulously fills out
the official form. But Madame Bâ can‘t help overflowing the small lines and begins to tell about her
childhood spent on the shores of the river, the love of her father, the humiliations of colonialism, the
difficult rebirth of the new Mali. She tells of her passion for her beautiful Fulani husband, her eight children
and the strange ―disease of the compass‖ which afflicts them. Unflinchingly, uncompromisingly, Madame
Bâ tells the story of the Africa of today, with its violence, its shattered dreams, its mafias. But also its
eternal richness and solidarity.
“La Grammaire est une chanson douce”
Specifications
144 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Carl Hanser), Italy (Salani),
Catalonia
(Encyclopedia
Catalana),
Spain
(Salamandra, Castilian world rights), Portugal (ASA),
China (Jieli, simplified characters), Taiwan (Eurasian
Publishing, complex characters), USA (Georges
Brasiller), Bulgaria (Stigmati), Thailand/ (Priew),
Albania (Dituria), Brittany (Preder), Albania
(Dituria), Korea (Media 2.0)
The book
The narrator, Jeanne, could almost be the little sister of Lewis Carroll‘s Alice, thrown as she is into a world
where one can no longer take one‘s bearings. After a shipwreck of which she and her older brother Thomas
are the only survivors, the two siblings are miraculously washed up onto an island. But the violence of the
storm has made them lose their voices. Welcomed onto the island by Monsieur Henri, a musical poet and
magician, they are shown a magical land in which words have a life of their own: they disguise themselves,
they put on make up, they get married… The children walk through a town of words in which there is both
humour and poetry and where rules are no longer weighty. Accompanied by Erik Orsenna, grammar
becomes child‘s play. All that is needed is to care about language.
***
Jean-Marc PARISIS
The author
Jean-Marc Parisis was born in 1962. he published La Mélancolie des fast foods (1987), Le Lycée des artistes
(1992) and Depuis toute la vie (2000) with Grasset. He is also the author of a biography of Jean-Marc
Reiser. Coming after Physique, published in January 2005, Avant, pendant, après is his second novel with
Stock.
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His works at Stock
“Les aimants”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
108 pages
Rights sold to: China (People‘s Litterature)Korea
(Munhak Segye-Sa) - Italy (Barbès) - Romania
(Nemira)
The book
This is the story of a man who hopes that, in his writing, he can find the young woman he has lost in life.
Ava, whom he met when he was twenty. Ava who was his love, his friend, his soul mate. Ava, whose light
went out even though she was ablaze with life.
And life truly does blaze in this novel. Sparks of wonderment and innocence, and violence too. For many
years it feels as if these enfants terribles discover more about each other on every page. When they split at
the age of thirty it is only to become even closer: having been lovers, they become brother and sister.
Another of love‘s miracles. Another of its mysteries too, because they were never apart yet they could never
actually live together. They were such close partners and so utterly free that they played with time, not
realising that it could hurt them, or suspecting that death could separate them.
This novel with its proud, contemplative beauty kills time and looks death in the eye to carve out a
magnificent portrait of a woman somewhere between heaven and earth.
A woman in all her truth, in all her light, and her darkness too. Secret and solitary as poetry. A woman
whose presence glows through these pages with emotion and stature.
Lodestones retraces a love story and belongs to all eternity, because it was her, because it was him.
“Avant, pendant, après” – Awarded the Prix Roger Nimier 2007
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
138 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Bompiani), China (Yingpan
Brother), Vietnam (Bach Viet Books), Estonia
(Pegasus), Norway (Engelstad), Algeria (French
language rights, Sédia), Korea (Tornado)
The book
―The first time I saw her, it was from behind. I loved her immediately. And I knew that when she turned
around it would be worse.‖
During a party, on a balcony, a man meets a young woman. This encounter changes his life completely. He
is a song writer who, so far, only knew love in the form of lyrics. Now he will experience love himself. The
incredible magic of the beginnings. Pleasure that he never thought could exist. Doubts, worries. The threat
that others – false friends and real lovers – come to represent. The psychology of love. Fantasies.
Pornography. The inaptitude of masculinity. Jealousy. Dependency and humiliation. Breaking up and the
misery of being rejected. To experience absolute grief and grow out of it – which does not mean one forgets.
Because it is an unforgettable story, for the one who lived through it as well as for the reader. Few have
gone so far in the depiction of love between a man and a woman.
“Physique”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
206 pages
Rights sold to: Russia (Stolitsa)
The book
This is the story of a man who becomes younger. There is no reason for it and he does not want it. Patrick
Langevin is 40 years old, he is a great Parisian lawyer, he has a wife and a 18 year-old daughter.
Workoholic, brilliant and charming, he cheats on his wife, without passion, and with a certain frenzy. One
night, he accompanies his daughters‘ young friend and cannot resist her. When he wakes up, he looks like
25 in his bathroom‘s mirror. This sudden change does not surprise him, does not make him happy or
anxious. Since a long time, nothing really surprises Langevin. He tells his friends and relatives that it had
been plastic surgery. The worst is that everybody believes him. But having got youth and beauty, his
troubles start. His clients do not trust him any more, women do not look at him, his wife ignores him and his
daughter has fun. Langevins‘ live changes. He leaves Paris for Italy, where he meets a young and pretty
barmaid. And then he will suddenly loose another ten years and discover himself being a 15 years old
adolescent. Of course, this is just the beginning of the story…
***
Camille de PERETTI
The author
Camille de Peretti is twenty-seven years old. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Thornytorinx
(Belfond, 2005; awarded the Prix du premier roman de Chambéry), Nous sommes cruels (Stock, 2006), and
Nous vieillirons ensemble (Stock, 2008, see the ―New Titles‖ section).
Her work at Stock
“La Casati”
Specifications
288 pages
Rights available
The book
Born in 1881, Italy‘s wealthiest heiress died in 1957, rummaging through London dustbins. Luisa Amman,
known as ―La Casati‖, was not beautiful, she was spectacular. She was brilliant, fascinating, unpredictable,
an exhibitionist and, taking extravagance extremely seriously, she wanted to ―make her life a work of art‖.
She was a muse to Gabriele d‘Annunzio, Serge Diaghilev and Léon Bakst, a friend to Isadora Duncan,
Augustus John and Man Ray… what a curious injustice that one of history‘s most painted women – along
with the Virgin Mary and Cleopatra – remains largely unknown to the general public.
For Camille de Peretti, writing a novel about the Marquise Casati, is also an exploration of the biographer‘s
methods (empathy or duel?), trying to put herself into another woman‘s shoes, to bring her voice back from
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the dead, rekindling her assumptions. ―It doesn‘t really matter that La Casati did or didn‘t live in the Palazzo
dei Leoni in Venice. Because I‘ll be the one sleeping in her bed.‖
During the course of bold to-ing and fro-ing between her own life and that of this very unusual character,
the author restores all the life and excesses of this forgotten heroine from the first half of the Twentieth
Century, a woman who inspired some of the greatest artists of her time.
“Nous viellirons ensemble”
Specifications
342 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Sperling & Kupfer), Germany
(Rowohlt) and South Korea (Munhakdogne)
The English and Dutch language rights are
handled by the agency Global Literary
Management. For these two languages, please
contact Marc Serges: [email protected].
The book
Sunday, October 1st. A day like any other at Les Bégonias, an old people‘s home in the outskirts of Paris. It
is 9:15 am. Nina the old eccentric lady waits for her little girl Camille to come and visit her, while Josy, the
fortune-telling life assistant, watches over her with a compassionate and kind eye. Louise Alma is for ever
going back over 92 years of memories. Jocelyne Barbier, of the administrational services, and Marthe
Buissonette, the minister‘s wife, take up their daily quarrel. Robert Leboeuf throws a look full of hope at
Thérèse Leduc. Captain Dreyfus is preparing his big escape. Christiane, the day-time nurse, tries to get rid
of a lover who has become too cumbersome. Philippe Drouin, the director, philatelist in his spare time,
dreams of buying a unique piece. Alphonse Destroismaisons, the old sweetheart, struggles desperately
against his wife‘s Alzheimer… And the family members of the residents, whether they like it or not, fulfill
their dominical duty. Life flows by gently, between joy and suffering, friendship and loneliness, love and
boredom, illness and envy.
Fascinated by the oulipian movement, the author has chosen to follow the structure of La vie mode
d‟emploi. By organizing the life of her characters around the founding principles of George Perec‘s novel,
Camille de Peretti takes on a new literary challenge and, with her usual acuteness, proposes us an unusual
immersion into the universe of old people‘s homes.
“Nous sommes cruels”
Specifications
324 pages
The book
Rights available, apart from the English and Dutch
language rights. For these two languages, please
contact Marc SERGES at Global Literary
Management: [email protected].
Julien and Camille were destined to become the best of friends. Both brilliant pupils, fascinated by XVIIIth
century literature, they are proud, cynical and pretentious, and share the conviction that they were born in
the wrong era... More than anything, they have a common desire to have fun and assert their power. What
then could be better than to re-enact the experiments of the Count de Valmont and the Marquise de
Merteuil? A few rules to establish, numerous ‗prey‘, many ‗trophies‘… They thus become partners in crime,
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masters of a cruel game over which they rule with frightening dexterity. Marie, Stanislas, William, Émilie,
Hadrien, Diane… so many victims of this diabolical pair.
The teenagers are soon caught up by the characters of their own creation however: the game goes too far.
But they are too proud to put an end to it. Things become more and more perilous and put them at risk of
entering that which they most dread: adulthood.
In confronting the most famous of French epistolary novels, the author evokes the power of literature as
well as the amoral, pitiless, desire-driven moment of our existence that is called adolescence. Camille de
Peretti mixes XVIIIth-century style letters, electronic mail and text messages, and succeeds in creating an
ambitious and clever contemporary transposition of Laclos‘ masterpiece.
***
Jean-Claude PERRIER
The author
Jean-Claude Perrier was born in Paris in 1957. A literary journalist (Livres-Hebdo, Le Figaro, Le
Magazine Littéraire), he also writes on music (Télé-Obs), and on the art of living (L‟Amateur de Cigare).
He is the author of twenty books and the editor of the « Domaine indien » series at Cherche-Midi.
His work
“Passage de la mere morte”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
116 pages
Rights available
The book
“You won‘t believe this: I have forgotten which year you died. I could, of course, find out the precise date,
if I leafed through papers and old agendas, or just by comparing the dates of past events, but why would I? I
am not even sure to have kept your death certificate, the unique official proof of your existence. I don‘t have
any desire – indeed, I dread revelations about your past, your family, the circumstances of your birth.‖
In the course of his dialogue with his long-gone mother, the narrator ties back together the loose threads of
his life and reveals long repressed secrets. He tries to understand this inaccessible woman whose past and
real name remain unknown, and whose love for him felt so deficient. The presence of this mother was
synonymous with disorder, crisis, bad memories and sudden disappearance. It is with his father and grandparents, and through the love of books and studies, that he found peace. Yet he grew up feeling different.
Later on, although he could never open his heart to her since she never answered his questions, he accepted
this unpredictable yet charming woman.
In this touching and sincere tale, the narrator does not merely bring back to life the woman who gave birth
to him: to tell her story is what will, at last, allow him to go forward.
***
Jean-Pierre PERRIN
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The author
Reporter for the journal Libération, Jean-Pierre Perrin directed during three years an international press
office in the Persian Gulf. He has written several war and travel stories, amongst which Les Rolling Stones
sont à Bagdad and Jours de poussière which received the Grand Prix 2003 des Lectrices de Elle.
Le paradis des perdantes is his third novel.
His work at Stock
“Le paradis des perdantes”
Specifications
Thriller
286 pages
Rights sold to Spain (Urano), Italy (Leone)
The book
Morvan, an ex-policeman, is hired to organise the protection of the heir to an emirate. A beautiful woman
also requests his services to find out about the disappearance of her younger sister – a teenager fascinated by
Jehan, a famous Egyptian actress. Morvan finds her body floating in the oily waters of the Golf. Suicide or
murder? The British Secret Services start to investigate, and so does Jehan herself, who hides a weighty
secret. Morvan soon discovers that a Saudi prince is involved, then learns about a mysterious clinic, called
The Paradise of the Women Losers. The readers find themselves in the thrall of a terrible scheme, organized
by terrorists and the monarchs of the Golf ready to take even the most sacrilegious of actions in order to
ensure their own security. It is the enigma of the Le paradis des perdantes that opens the doors to hell.
***
Cypora PETITJEAN-CERF
The author
Cypora Petitjean-Cerf was born in 1974. In 2005, she published an essay, ―L‘école de la dernière chance, un
an en classe-relais,‖ and a novel, ―Le musée de la Sirène,‖ with Stock. Her latest novel, ―Le corps de Liane‖
was published in 2007.
Her works at Stock
“Le film”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
352 pages
Rights availables
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The book
Ruth Chaï-Seckl has recently settled in Marq-en-Baroeul (North of France) where she has taken a job as a
primary school teacher. She is bored; her failed attempts at her making her pupils more interested in school
through extra-curricular activities and outings have made her depressed, and she has started to despise them.
She strikes a friendship with her neighbour, Gisèle Farache-Sanchez, who works at the post office. They
decide to take part in the International Documentary Film Festival in Marseilles.
The two women begin to film each other and tell their life stories in front of the camera. Once the initial
reticence and fear of ridicule have vanished, they start to open their heart in front of the camera. Hence, we
discover that Ruth wanted to be a Jew in spite of her father‘s opposition, and that Gisèle, who was adopted
at birth, listens to Julio Iglesias all day long because she thinks she might be of Spanish origins.
The film, called Racines, acts as a space for disclosure. The project starts to impact on those who are close
to the two women: Juan, Gisèle‘s husband, their strange neighbour, madame Havetz, as well as the baker
woman Chrissie. Everyone feels the need to talk to the camera.
After Le musée de la sirène and Le corps de Liane, Cypora Petitjean-Cerf demonstrates anew her
formidable talent for story-telling. Structured like a scenario, as a series of brief scenes that combine
colourful characters, an irresistible sense of ‗mise en scène‘ and sparkling dialogues, Le film is a joyful and
inventive tale infused with an irresistible sense of gentleness and generosity.
“Le corps de Liane”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
342 pages
Rights sold to: Korea (Hanulgorae).
The book
Liane often wonders why she does not feel completely like a girl. ‗It‘s because there are no men in the
house‘ says Roselyne, her friend. In effect, Liane‘s is a woman‘s world, where women have seen men
depart without regret or resentment and have learned to live without them. As the novel unravels, and the
characters trade life, needs and sorrows, it evokes a gentle version of ―Cries and Whispers‖. Christine,
Liane‘s mother, stops working and drifts slowly into depression. Liane takes charge of her; she becomes the
mother of her mother with the help of Eva, the cleaning lady. Then Huguette, Liane‘s grand-mother,
reappears and starts to take care of Christine. It is as if the strength of the one was the weakness of the other
– a kind of solidarity written in the flesh. Their other link is Dallas, which episodes they all follow – even
Liliane, the great grand-mother who barely survives in her retirement home; even Ghania, the silent and
submissive wife of Hassan the grocer. Le corps de Liane is a magnificent book. The author recounts Liane‘s
youth with the fondness and lucidity of an invisible older sister, following her as she travels the natural path
towards femininity and becomes conscious, through the grace of a child and the guidance of a friend, of her
own beauty.
“Le musée de la Sirène”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
120 pages
Rights available
The book
Annabelle is a painter. One night, she enters a Chinese restaurant. She dips her hand in the large, decorative
fish tank, grabs the siren who swims amongst the fish, and runs away. Annabelle puts the creature in her
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bathtub. And the addiction begins.One day, the siren reveals a talent as a painter and draftswoman. Hers is
an exceptional gift soon recognized. Her work fascinates and hypnotises the public, and Annabel protects
her, putting her own existence in the balance.Amongst other characters, we are introduced to a corrupt
restaurant owner, a depressed record producer, a fanatical medical student, a journalist, an art gallery
director, two Japanese tourists, non-identical twin brothers, a handful of adults and children who want to
learn how to draw. And then, there is the water - a very large quantity of water.
***
Jean-Claude PIROTTE
The author
Jean-Claude Pirotte, born in 1939, has been publishing stories, novels, and poems for over forty years,
which makes him one of the most important authors of the French language. His latest book, ―Une
adolescence en Gueldre,‖ was awarded the Prix des deux Magots 2006.
His works at Stock
“Expédition nocturne autour de ma cave”
Specifications
―Ecrivins Series‖
92 pages
Rights available
The book
Pirotte proposes a journey into the only continent that is still worth surveying nowadays, because it still is
unknown to us: that of man, and of the debates that are held in his head. The head of a reader, of a winelover, of an utterly delicate spirit thrown into a vulgar world that upsets and suffocates him. Is there any
better way to escape from this than what is promised by wine and literature? The first does not go without
the second, and the latter is nothing but dryness and deadliness without the former. To stroll around a wine
cellar with Jean-Claude Pirotte means moving between books and barrels, accompanied by the best of
possible guides and his incomparable voice. A journey ―by leaps and bounds‖ that would not have been
refused by Montaigne, since it treats of ―human matters, friendship and philosophy.‖
***
Evelyne PISIER
The author
Évelyne Pisier is a professor of law and political sciences at the University of Paris I. Other than a large
number of articles, text books, treatises and dictionaries in her field of studies, she published her first novel
in 1994 (La Dernière fois, Flammarion), and a fictional biography of Sonia Rykiel in 2001 (Quand elle n‟a
pas de rouge, elle met du noir, with Carmen Castillo, Fayard). In 2005 she published Une question d‟âge
and in 2006, On ne corrige pas les fautes, both at Stock.
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Her works at Stock
“On ne corrige pas les fautes”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
212 pages
Rights available
The book
After her parents‘ death in a car crash a few hours after her birth, Louise is taken in by Paul, her father‘s
twin brother. The two of them could have lived happily ever after, like father and daughter, brother and
sister, maybe even like lovers, if one day Marina had not stepped into Paul‘s life.
Marina is very young, very pretty, and very strong as well. It is she who convinces Paul to marry her, who
believes she can become an ideal stepmother to Louise, and who finally decides that Paul and she will have
a child together. Louise decides not to spare Marina nor her fake father Paul from her fits and whims.
After the critically acclaimed Une question d‘âge, Évelyne Pisier confirms with her latest novel that she is a
unique and gifted observer of both the young and the adolescent as well as the couple in contemporary
society. Once more she takes risks, her novel surprises us with its boldness and impoliteness. Too bad and
so much the better, since it shows her doubts, her fears, her powerlessness, and ours as well. One does not
correct ones‘ mistakes.
“Une question d’âge”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
282 pages
Rights available
The book
There are many books about successful adoptions. We can read about the difficulties parents have before
discovering their child, about the inevitable period of learning on both sides, and then, we can usually read
about a joyful and constructive end of the story. Evelyne Pisier tells about a couple waiting for their child,
about the first period of getting used to each other, but then she tells us that these moments are the easiest
and most logical moments of the story. Une question d‟âge tells about an adoption which becomes very
difficult, an adoption never accepted by the child – a young girl and then an adolescent girl – and an
adoption which does not end happily. The child never accepts its ‗illegitimate‘ status and father and mother
never find a way out of their loving but awkward attitude towards this child in permanent rebellion.
This novel which sometimes seems to be a document, is surprisingly incorrect and therefore extremely
poignant and strong. What usually cannot be said about adoption, is openly said in this novel. There is
humour as well, and a deep tenderness in the authors‘ tone.
***
Anne PLANTAGENET
The author
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Anne Plantagenet studied literature in Paris then lived in London and Seville. She is the author of two
documentary films on Seville, of numerous translations from Spanish to French, as well as a biography of
the torero Manolete (Ramsay, 2005), and of Marilyn Monroe (―Folio Biographies,‖ 2007). She has also
published a biographical novel about Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Seule au rendez-vous (Laffont, 2005,
recipient of the récit biographique award) and her first novel, Un coup de corne fut mon premier baiser, was
published by Ramsay in 1998.
Her work
“Nation Pigalle"
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
496 pages
Rights available
The book
You are French because (tick relevant box)
-
You were born in France and at least one of your parents was born in France
You were born in France and at least one of your parents was born in a former French départment or
territory.
You were born in France and at least one of your parents is French
You were not born in France and at least one of your parents…
Today, in the Pigalle neighbourhood of Paris, an old woman sets fire to her apartment. This desperate act
turns the lives of countless people around her upside down, from other inhabitants in her building to her
cleaner, via her only son who lives a few streets away, and the wife he is about to leave for another woman.
They all feel they have been set adrift and discover new, unexpected facets of themselves.
Nation Pigalle roams from sex shops so supermarket dustbins, from childminders‘ apartments to former
brothels, waiting rooms to furiously expensive shops, meeting as many breathless middle-class shoppers as
homeless dropouts, as well as children, teenagers, repatriated colonials, a Russian piano teacher, a Chinese
seamstress, Romanian acrobats, an Icelandic volcano, a football World Cup, a Moulin Rouge or even a mad
poet. It is a brutal x-ray of an ailing consumer society, of a France struggling to find its identity… and the
truth may lie not in passports but in the spontaneous babble on its streets.
“Le prisonnier"
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
144 pages
Rights available
The book
Who is this man they call Daddy? Who is it that has been hunted down for months? Who is finally arrested
in the middle of the night? Did someone denounce him? Is he an outlaw, an assassin, a revolutionary? Julia,
a young village primary-school teacher, asks herself all these questions when the people who caught Daddy
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wake her in the night and ask her to go with them. She realises they have locked Daddy in a classroom, one
in her school… she realises she has no choice. She is the one who has to watch the prisoner all night, to feed
him, clean him and tend to him before he is handed over. At first Julia is afraid. There is blood in the
classroom, Daddy‘s blood. She is alone with a man sprawled on the ground, dirty, smelly and unshaved. All
through the night she gives him water and food, talks to him and talks to herself. She is full of conflicting
emotions, alternating between disgust and envy, hate and compassion. This single young woman who is not
properly integrated in village life and has recently broken up with her cheating boyfriend begins a
conversation with the wounded prisoner who has been injured and humiliated by arrogant children it
proves to be a very unusual and moving conversation.
What will the end of the night bring for each of them? Redemption? Death? The possibility of another life?
The Prisoner is a magnificent in camera piece, played out through feverish and intense exchanges with
victims and tormentors at such close quarters..
“Pour les siècles des siècles"
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
162 pages
Rights available
The book
This book is composed of seven short stories about love and seduction, desire and tenderness. Seven men
and women meet, attract each other, look for the other or hide from him or her. Their names are the names
of legendary couples that literature turned into myths. Yet these particular Romeo and Juliet, Paul and
Virginie are part of our contemporary world and share our doubts as well as our illusory craving for
happiness. Will Dante fall in love with a Beatrix that is really not his type? Will Juliet open a letter that is
addressed to Romeo? What is certain is that Marcel is still in love with Albertine, and will continue to love
her for the centuries to come. Albertine has just died at the age of ninety three.
Anne Plantagenet‘s book moves seamlessly from the comedy of love to the poignant tale of a lover‘s last
days. She records minute but significant details, gestures and words that can change a life. While each short
story creates its own specific atmosphere, images and situations resonate across the book and endow this
collection with a remarkable sense of cohesion and harmony.
***
Stéphanie POLACK
The author
Stéphanie Polack was born in 1977 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. She works for a publisher, and ―Route
Royale‖ is her first novel.
Her work at Stock
“Route Royale”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
218 pages
Rights available
The book
Constance gets out of jail and David is not waiting for her. She knows he is not coming. She was the one
who rejected him, who told him to stay away. Constance is twenty-one. David was her first love. They loved
each other, fought, tore each other apart.
Constance is alone. In spite the loving, caring presence that her father cast on her childhood, she has cut all
ties with her family. Eve, a friend, offers her a roof and some advice that Constance does not follow.
On Christmas night, she meets Werner. She does not know that this man was at her trial. That he knows
everything about the accident that got her into jail. Werner lives off his private income and wastes his forties
in pubs, at auctions and in court – he has a passion for legal proceedings.
How to forget David and start again with a life that was wrecked on the Route Royale? This is one amongst
many unanswered questions that haunt this raw and thought-provoking debut novel. Constance probably set
off into the world too early. Yet, for all her sadness and doubts, she is a person worth knowing.
***
François PRUNIER
The author
François Prunier was born in 1968 in a Parisian suburb. He is a financial analyser, and the author of Martin
Roi (2003). En terre hostile is his second novel.
His works at Stock
“En terre hostile”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
Publication date: Mars 2005
154 pages
Rights available
The book
Cédric maillet is a man adrift, haunted by the memory of the wife who left him three years before. While
passing through a small town in the north of France, Maillet meets Diego, an adolescent with a heavy secret,
whom he befriends. The next day, Diego‘s mother, the owner of the hotel in which Maillet has taken room,
is savagely murdered, her body stabbed thirty-three times. In spite of the oppressive atmosphere, Maillet
decides to conduct his own investigation.
The novel offers a spell-binding description of the hero‘s wanderings through the depressing, hostile
provincial town. The tension oozed by the story and the oppressive atmosphere of repressed violence
become inscribed in the urban landscape itself. Developing around Diego‘s strange family and
acquaintances and a collection of characters whose hardness is close to a form of madness, the mystery
seems to deepen. Maillet‘s obstinate, self-destructive quest contributes to the tragic undertone of the story
even further.
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“Martin Roi”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
198 pages
Rights available
The book
Martin Roi is an affectionate and precocious little boy. He soon manifests an extraordinary talent for
drawing and wins the admiration of everyone around him. But as he grows older, the once sociable child
becomes introverted. Martin‘s dreams are not the dreams of a child his age. His drawn characters reflect his
fantasies: warring and cruel dominatrixes who humiliate men. As a teenager, he realises what he really is: a
deviant, a pervert, a masochist. Surmounting his shame, his fear of being unmasked and the temptation of
suicide, he decides to earn the money which will enable him to live out his fantasies freely.
***
Eric REINHARDT
The author
Éric Reinhardt was born in Nancy in 1965. He works and lives in Paris where he publishes art books. He is
the author of Demi-sommeil (Actes Sud, 1998), Le moral des ménages (Stock, 2002), Existence (Stock,
2004), and the critically acclaimed Cendrillon (Stock, 2007).
His works at Stock
“Cendrillon”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
578 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Il Saggiatore), Korea (Agora)
The book
Laurent Dahl runs away, leaving behind his wife, children, London flat and servants. His dazzling rise in
investment business has just ended in bankruptcy, making him lose several billions of dollars.
With weapons hidden in the boot of his car, Patrick Neftel speeds along towards a television studio to
accomplish the radical and desperate gesture that will at last give him the feeling that he exists.
Thierry Trockel is driving his wife to an isolated manor house in the outskirts of Munich, where they are to
meet a couple they contacted through the internet.
Through these three characters, Éric Reinhardt, author of Le moral des ménages, pursues his critical
observation of the contemporary middle-classes and reveals the brutality of a world that incarnates itself in
the plight of traders drunk with victory, social success‘s castoffs, submissive and humiliated parents, angry
teenagers, greedy and ambitious youths. It shows a society stuck between arrogant and dilapidated
celebrities and leftist intellectuals contemptuous of those that society rejects.
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Well documented, precise and captivating, Cendrillon is the novel we were waiting for; a novel about our
globalised world. We get caught up by the perilous gambles of speculators and the vertiginous mechanics of
investment business. We fearfully slide into the intimacy of a young, lost man who dreams of being a killer.
Reinhardt‘s is a powerful and cruel tale, yet in his book the taste for happiness always counterbalances the
reigning brutality. Through the evocation of the arousing attraction of red-heads, the grace of the Opera‘s
ballerinas, as well as Mallarmé‘s poetry, the author celebrates the magic of his favorite season, autumn. The
most dazzling pages of the novel, however, are devoted to the queenly figure of Margot, whose love can on
its own lift the weight of fatality.
At the end of the journey that it sets forth, Cendrillon, novel of passion and war in which laughter is bitter
but tears joyful, becomes the most moving of novels.
“Existence”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
342 pages
Rights available
The book
With a degree from a prestigious school, an obsession with logic and a fetish for the works of Wittgenstein,
Jean-Jacques Carton-Mercier went on to become an odious and spineless executive who behaves like a
tyrant. Until a harmless incident – buying a candy-bar at the local bakery – sets off a chain reaction of
disaster. This misanthropist, all too sure of his values and his intellectual superiority, suddenly experiences
the hostility of others, discovers his own weaknesses and doubts about the course of his life.
The tale of this crazy day in the life of Jean-Jacques Carton-Mercier – who goes through humiliation and
disaster – is full of wit. The narrative, spurred by the character‘s chaotic thought process, is agitated by his
memories, hypotheses and fabrications. The unexpected sequence of dialogue and situations and burlesque
characters make this strange satire one of the funniest and surprising novels of the year.
“Le moral des ménages”
Specifications:
―Blue Series‖
276 pages
Rights available
The book
Manuel Carsen, a business school graduate, quickly dropped his job as a representative to become a singer.
At the age of 40, he is an unknown singer-songwriter. His wife left with their daughter, and he realises he is
a failure, just like his father. His father was shy and hung-up, dominated by his wife and humiliated by his
employers. His mother was anxious and austere, and he had always rejected her values, the values of the
middle class. Through the story of his childhood and adolescence, he paints the portrait of a frigid France,
whose economic asceticism is leading the country straight into a recession.
***
Alain RÉMOND
The author
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Alain Rémond is an author and a journalist who writes for La Croix and Marianne. He has published
Chaque jour est un adieu, Un jeune homme est passé and Comme une chanson dans la nuit with Seuil.
His works at Stock
“Celui qui n’est pas venu”
Specifications:
―Blue Series‖
120 pages
Rights available
The book
Suddenly, with an incredible intensity, the memory of two or three years from when I was about twenty
years old has come back to me. It is so far away, so old!
When I turned twenty, in 1967, I was sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work in Djemâa-Saharidj, a
small village of the Kabyle region of Algeria. Already then I felt heavy with the weight of too many
memories. I was trying to understand who I was, what I was taking part in. I had to make a choice: between
my ―vocation,‖ the wish, that I had since childhood, to become a priest, or another life. But we cannot
fathom our own destiny. We only make sense of things in retrospect, long after they have happened. This is
why I will talk about Jacques Vallot, and the role he played, mysteriously, obscurely, in shaping the life I
was to live.
“Les romans n’interessent pas les voleurs”
Specifications:
198 pages
Rights available
The book
Jérôme works for Hurtebise publishing house, where his job is to ‗shape‘ other people‘s novels. This
essentially means reworking best-selling author Bannister‘s abysmal pulp. Bannister churns out novels, one
after the other, all of them vaguely thriller-ish, sentimental-ish, and completely worthless. It is Jérôme‘s job
to give them a tone, a style, some kind of structure.
But his real passion is Santenac, the genius, the author of three books, family stories written in the early
1960s. Three books and then nothing: all of a sudden, Santenac disappeared, and was never seen again.
Jérôme and his childhood friend, a journalist called Jean-Paul, have one obsession: to find Santenac, and the
books that he has written in his hideaway. One particular morning, as he has come in to pick up his next
instalment of Bannister‘s crap, Jérôme gets a phone call from Jean-Paul: the journalist has found Santenac,
he knows where the writer is hiding. They leave at once, travelling to a remote part of the Aveyron where
their dream will become reality: for both of them, Santenac is far more than a novelist. His books are a
question of life and death, especially for Jérôme, who finds in them that which he never had: a family.
***
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Jean-Jacques ROCHE
The author
Born in 1956, Jean-Jacques Roche is professor at the University of Paris II – Panthéon-Assas and directs the
Institut Supérieur de l‟Armement et la Défense. He published several theoretical works and, under a
pseudoym, three novels published at Albin Michel and JC Lattès.
His works at Stock
“L’agenda de Rome”
Specifications
Thriller
315 pages
Rights available
The book
A Kurdish immigrant worker is savagely murdered on a building site adjoining the European Commission
offices. Thousands of miles away, in Southern Italy, the City of Kalamata, a rusting old cargo charged with
over five hundred clandestine passengers, is being held at bay at the borders of the national waters. An
inspector of the Brussels‘ police, Tanguy Remacle, and one from Bari‘s guardia di Finanz, Maria-Pia
Virgilio, start investigating, and remain determined to bring the criminals to justice, even in the face of the
immunity provided by an arrogant Eurocracy and of the power of Southern European Mafias. The
policemen quickly find themselves isolated and deprived of their superior‘s support. Ultimately, the two
investigations form a single quest that lead the two men on the track of an influential sect strongly opposed
to the integration of Turkey to the European Union. Who are its members, and how far are they prepared to
go to defend they own idea of Europe? Remacle et Virgilio‘s inquest draws us into the spell-binding
universe of an action-packed thriller that weaves together police intrigues and geopolitical power struggles.
“Les vautours blancs”
Specifications
Thriller
358 pages
Rights available
The book
In Brazzaville in the Congo, a humanitarian organisation – International Urgency – is running a camp for
refugees, under the somewhat threatening protection of a local militia operating under the orders of a chief
of war. A young refugee who seems different from the others and is trying to hide certain strange symptoms
attracts the attention of Jérôme, a French doctor in the camp. With the help of a resourceful priest and a
nurse, he begins to look more closely into the humanitarian installations in the camp. They end up
discovering a clandestine laboratory where forbidden experiments are being conducted. But the camp
suddenly finds itself cut off from outside help as the Angolan army and Japanese mercenaries brutally
surround the area. Jérôme and everyone around him are caught in the midst the hostilities, their lives at risk.
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***
Philippe ROUTIER
The author
Philippe Routier was born in Germany in 1958. He has been living in Paris since 1974, trying his hand at a
series of jobs at the national railway company, the SNCF, which he joined in 1983. He writes poetry, short
stories and plays. ―Réseau nord‖ was broadcasted on France Culture in 1989. He now works for the
communication department of the SNCF. He has published two novels at Stock: ―Passage à niveau‖ (2006)
and ―Le veilleur du Britannia‖ (2008).
His works at Stock
“Pour une vie plus douce”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights available
The book
At first it is almost banal. The story of a couple dreaming of a better life and letting themselves be seduced
by the illusions of a consumerist world.
Bertrand works in the parcel department of the Post Office. Having failed to secure internal promotion, he
has no hope of any career advances. Sandrine has a precarious if specialised job. They get married, have a
child and set up home in a council flat in Sartrouville. They could live there modestly but have got into the
habit of buying whatever they feel like on credit. Why live on the cheap when financial institutions offer a
better life? They take out a huge mortgage to buy a bungalow. The father falls for a top-of-the-range gas
barbeque and the latest model of eco-friendly wood-burner. Their spiralling debts grind the family down
until it falls apart. The man ends up alone with his nine-year-old son. Pursued by creditors and prey to daily
humiliations that promise a miserable future, he decides to commit the irreparable.
For a Better Life checks the pulse of our consumer society through the story of a modest family, strangled
by debts until their lives turn to tragedy. There is, however, a note of hope and a great deal of humour in this
incisive novel which displays admirable humanity and genuine tenderness for its credible, un-flashy and
endearing characters. People who have been made vulnerable but manage to cope with a life of injustice and
hardship, and prove a magnificent sense of solidarity. Overlaying the main theme is the strong and touching
father-son relationship, subtly exploring questions of family ties and of guilt and responsibility.
“Le veilleur du Britannia”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights available
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The book
In his comfortable funeral chamber, Jean-Robert Carouge waits for the visit of his family and friends. He
knows his wife will not come. She drew their conjugal life to a close long ago, and took the children with
her. Christa and Jean have grown up, drifting away from their father - this soft, ineffective man as he
describes himself. Yet he hopes they will come for a last good-bye.
Jean-Robert died suddenly, hit by a bus as he was leaving the Britannia hotel where he worked as a night
guard. To kill time, he wrote novels that he then read to Sophie, the hotel receptionist.
Today, Jean-Robert is convinced that life is a farce, operated by a sick mind.
What is left of an ordinary existence? A few relationships and a handful of friends and the persistent
memory of a languorous dance and a failed love story… Le veilleur du Britannia is a tender yet caustic tale,
a humorous and inventive reflection on eternity that blends farce with pain in its account of its characters‘
banal and solitary lives.
“Le passage à niveau”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
158 pages
Rights available
The book
The level crossing 515, in the forest of Retz, has neither fence nor traffic light. One night, Manon Gerberoy
drives to the railway line not knowing that a train is approaching at the speed of 160 km per hour. The crash
is unavoidable. The car is crushed and its three passengers die: Manon, 32, her daughter Émilie, 7, et
Manon‘s father, 56.
A former points man, Guillaume has changed jobs to satisfy his girlfriend, Alice, fed up with the frequency
of his nightshifts. He has been driving local trains for a few weeks. He feels responsible for the crash, and
his anguish splits his couple further. Alone and angst-ridden, Guillaume meets Cyrille, a childhood friend of
Manon, from whom he seeks reassurance that he is innocent of her death.
This first novel is uncompromising and cruel in its depiction of the dissolution of a couple, of frustration
and weariness replacing desire. Philippe Routier‘s characters have had hard lives. Few have chosen the
existence that ties them to this dull, desolated region of the Picardie. The ‗aristocrats of the railways‘ that
train drivers once were have lost their prestige even if they still appear in the dreams of little boys.
***
Pascale ROZE
The author
Pascale Roze was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1996 for her first novel, Le Chasseur Zéro. At Stock, She
has published Un homme sans larmes (2005), L‟eau rouge (2006) and Itsik (2008).
Her works at Stock
“Aujourd’hui les coeurs se desserrent”
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Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights availables
The book
Over the course of three generations, the Deslorgeux family – industrialists from Rouen whose glory rests
on manufacturing poplin – lose money, conviction and power. All that is left of them is little Lorette, living
somewhere in the world. The Second World War and the rise to power of third world countries might
explain the family‘s decline, but there is also a need to escape their destiny, to stay true to principles
towards and against everything, to open up a heart so firmly constrained by provincial, Catholic, middle
class expectations.
The story revolves around the rivalry between two brothers. One escapes from a prison camp during the
war, and refuses to talk about it, while the other flees the hardships of combat and takes refuge in painting.
One marries and has children but walls himself in silence his whole life. He will run the family company.
The other, who watched the woman he loved marry his brother, has no descendants.
The family‘s last son is the one to speak out. Reading between the lines, as he reconstitutes past events, vital
but painful questions emerge: What is a successful life? How should each of us life ―our‖ life? What exactly
do we inherit?
With this portrait of a substantial middle class family in decline, Pascale Roze takes the reader through
troubled times and weaves together conflicting destinies with acuity and tenderness.
Itsik
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
122 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Guanda) and Romania (Art)
The book
Yitzhok Gersztenfeld was born in Warsaw in 1904, the last in a family of nine children. He is the fairest
one, the gentle, silent one. He lives in the Jewish district, where there are few jobs and even less money. He
loves this life yet he will have to leave and, like the little Itsik, become a bird.
He has to do it for the love of Maryem, who wants an easier life. He goes to Berlin, where his eldest brother
heads a textile workshop. Then he flees to France, and works in the mines before moving to Paris where he
has relatives. In the capital city he at last can settle with Maryem, have children and start a knit-work
manufacturing business. But History catches up with them. The Munich agreement. The invasion of the
Sudetes. The Crystal Night. Then the armistice. Danger coming closer. When Yitzhok is summoned by the
French authorities in 1941, he goes, and is taken to the Pithiviers camp. He obtains a leave but does not flee:
he goes back to the camp as he has promised to. On June 24th he climbs into a train that takes him to
Auschwitz. He will never come back.
Yitzhok‘s story belongs to a past that remains open, like a wound that does not heal. His tale helps us to
understand a multitude of other fates, rendered anonymous by the grand scheme of History. Thanks to
Pascale Roze‘s beautiful book, their memory remains alive and profoundly moving.
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“L’eau rouge”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
158 pages
Rights sold to: Vietnam (Nha Nam)
The book
At the end of her life, Laurence Bertilleux starts to loose her head. Her daughters, looking over her, listen to
her delirium. They catch some of the words she utters - Lân, Chaudoc, Coincoin. Moulin…- recognise some
of them. They know that Chaudoc for instance, is the name of a place where their mother stayed during the
war of Indochina, before they were born. A few days before her death, Laurence manages to escape, and
finds the strength to go to the airport, where she intends to take a plane for the Guyana. She is caught at the
last minute and brought back home, where she lets herself die, taking her story with her.
It is this story, the secret that Laurence left in Indochina, that is told in Pascale Roze‘s new novel, the most
Romanesque of her books since Le Chasseur Zéro, which won her the Goncourt prize.
Why Indochina? Why choose this country, life amongst the military, when she was but a young twenty-five
year old woman that nothing had prepared for such adventures? Why then this hurried return to France a
few years later? Roze‘s novel answers these intriguing questions in her deeply affecting style. The
mysterious words pronounced by Laurence on her death bed become familiar. In each of them, we come to
recognise a nickname, the evocation of a loved one, a passion, a young woman‘s dream.
“Un homme sans larmes”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
174 pages
Rights available
The book
Many a writer has described joy as the illumination of an instant, destined to vanish or already passed.
Thought grows most comfortably in the snare of despair, and only escapes from it briefly, promptly
returning to this familiar territory. I had to read Horace, going back to the Antiquity, to find, buried under
the dust of centuries, a form of writing that seeks to express the joy of life - not the solitary, secluded joy of
the mystic, but the joy of living in amongst others. This is not joy as the exception, but as a daily
occurrence. In his work, Horace does not only elaborate a philosophy grounded in happiness, but offers
himself as its object, a case in point. In Horace, the joy of life becomes life‘s task, an essential part of the act
of writing itself. In reading Horace, I experience deep emotions as well as gratitude. I need him. I have
sought, with all my strength, to understand him.
***
Capucine RUAT
The author
Capucine Ruat was born 1975. Celle qui ne parle pas is her first novel.
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Her works at Stock
“J’attends”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
144 pages
Rights available
The book
“There are lots of children who are never born, and adults who have not been brought into this world.
Death has closed the eyes of the lost and opened those of the survivors, so that both are now perfectly lucid.
I wish I were a little less so.”
The first-person narrator here is Angèle Videau, sister of Arielle, daughter of Armelle and Denis, a discreet
presence in this novel about women. Three generations of women, from Mané to Armelle, from Armelle to
Angèle. Three generations, and not one more.
We meet Angèle in the waiting room at a doctor‘s surgery, sitting with her hands resting over her waist
which is swollen with hope. While, before her eyes, future mothers and young children act out their usual
ballet, Angéle speaks to Eric. The princely Eric she so longs for and carries within her, and that she hopes to
tame. This is an opportunity to reassess her dreams and memories, and to fill places that have been left
empty.
Why were neither of her parents loved by their mothers? Why is it so difficult to have a child in this family?
Would her life be a failure if she didn‘t bring life into it? So many questions, and all of Angèle‘s questions
remain unanswered.
Because Expecting is a feeling of deficiency; a heart beating quietly, ugliness gradually propagating fear, a
body that is so dry and soon, if they are not careful, this dwindling family will find the dead have supplanted
the living.
Angèle wishes she was not so lucid but for Eric‘s sake she has revealed everything. An unwavering, almost
clinical view of those close to her and of herself; one that reveals - with a violence held in check by her
tenderness - all the secrets, longings and hopes that could not or would not be expressed.
By using one young woman‘s point of view and the sketched lives of women she meets, Expecting succeeds
in touching on the universal: motherhood, womanhood, blood ties and life force.
“Celle qui ne parle pas”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
94 pages
Rights available
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The book
The woman who does not speak has a lot to say, of course. Secret things, hidden deep inside herself.
Insignificant things, maybe, yet things that burn internally. There is a moment where one has to speak. It is a
question of survival. Because the body progressively gives up, becomes thin and childish looking. Because
all desires vanish. Because the people around, oblivious or powerless, look away. The young woman is
thirty. She feels she cannot continue to pretend; to carry on hating herself and keeping herself apart; to let
life pass by her. If she does not do anything about it, she will become a woman of salt, a statue of marble.
So she takes the story up again, this red line that connects the women: her grand-mother, her mother, her
sister, her best friend. Generations of women who can only offer a flawed kind of love, a warped love. The
young woman has inherited the same, insecure sense of femininity, which she carries like a burden. To try
and understand, she searches deep, looks for the roots. In 1986, at the age of eleven, she leaves the golden
realm of childhood and enters adolescence. Her body becomes heavy and unattractive, clumsy and viscous.
Surrounded by women who do not like themselves, living in the shadow of a beautiful sister, she withdraws
into depression. Books and writing become her refuge against the rule of silence; against the family that
suffocates her more everyday. At eleven, she is seized by a fear that will not leave her alone. Behind the
women now loom the shadows of the men; the father one adores as a child and who does not take you in his
arms anymore; love stories that turned sour. How does one become unlovable, even to oneself? To gently
engage in conversation with those we care for may open a path forward; to write may be a way to reconcile
oneself with life. Maybe.
***
Françoise SAGAN
The author
Aged nineteen, Françoise Sagan was propelled to glory with Bonjour Tristesse, which was followed by
plays and several other novels. All of them successful.
She wrote her own obituary in the Dictionnaire des écrivains, compiled under the direction of Jérôme
Garcin: ―Appeared in 1954 with a slender novel, Bonjour Tristesse, which created a scandal worldwide. Her
death, after a life and a body of work that were equally pleasant and botched, was a scandal only for
herself.‖
Her works at Stock
“Des bleus à l’âme”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
192 pages
Rights sold to: Bulgaria (Fama), China (Shangai 99),
Korea (Sodam & taeil), Italy (Barbès), Romania (Art),
Russia (Eksmo), Taiwan (Rye Field)
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The book
Sébastien and Eléonore are brother and sister, inseparable accomplices, settle in a chance find of a furnished
apartment in Paris, perfectly penniless and perfectly available. Almost immediately they have people
thronging round them: Nora, an American as wealthy as she is ripe in years, Bruno, a young French film
star, Robert, a famous impresario…
For once Sagan‘s incidental music takes on a cold, clashing personal note. She takes sides with her
characters and gives us her opinion of their lives and her own. She tells us how she feels about people who
criticise her books, tells us what she herself thinks of her ―incidental music‖, and puts herself in the picture
as she rarely does elsewhere. She uses the first person to justify her choices but, in a final flourish, gives it
back its novelistic status.
“Des yeux de soie”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
208 pages
Rights sold to: China (Shangai 99), Italy (Barbès),
Korea (Sodam & Taeil), Latvia (Baltos Lankos),
Russia (Eksmo)
The book
There are times in life when the tiniest thing can alter.
In these nineteen tales by Françoise Sagan there is a bitter-sweetness that catches at the heart. A sweetness
that is all the more troubling because the characters in question are almost all fulfilled: not men and women
who readily solicit pity, but the sort we envy for their apparent happiness.
It is loneliness that connects these tales, weighing on of them. A loneliness that the author catches and, with
a quiet smile, pins it to the wall where we can have a good look at it. And that smile is the way of showing
us that, deep down, life and people do not matter all that much…Eyes of silk that caress and reassure, but
how much despair are they hiding?.
“Toxique”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
96 pages
Rights sold to: China (Shangai 99), Germany
(Aufbau), Greece (Synapseis) Italy (Barbès), Korea
(Sodam & Taeil), Romania (Art), Russia (Eksmo),
Spain (Atico de los Libros), Taiwan (Rye Field)
The book
―For a period of three months in the summer of 1957, following a car crash, I was prey to sufficiently bad
pain to be given daily doses of a morphine substitute called ‗875‘ (palfium). At the end of those three
months I was sufficiently intoxicated to require a stay in a specialised clinic. It was a brief stay but while I
was there I wrote this diary that I came across the other day.‖ Françoise Sagan
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In this diary Françoise Sagan describes her suffering and her terror of decline. She watches herself, gauges
herself, shares with us her thoughts, what she is reading, her overwhelming fear of death, of annihilation and
loneliness.
Her friends do not forget her, though; the smell of grass in the garden fills her with happiness. Her
memories of café life, of alcohol and cigarettes seem so far away that she gives us a sense that she will
never go back to them.
Bernard Buffet knows exactly how to put the brutality of Sagan‘s words into images. Every page is
illustrated with sharp, violent drawings that reflect the unbearable pain of loss.
Lost for many years, Toxic is the founding work about the turn Françoise Sagan‘s life took after her
accident.
“Le lit défait”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
368 pages
Rights sold to: Bulgaria (Fama), China (Zhejiang UP),
Romania (Art), Russia (Eksmo)
The book
When Béatrice casually left Edouard five years earlier, she quickly replaced him. It has to be said, although
the boy was attractive, he was very young and had no future. But he is now a successful author, the darling
of Paris society and still just as much in love with her, with Béatrice, the stunning, ferocious comedy
actress. She falls straight back into his arms, amazed she still remembers him.
This beautiful couple excites considerable curiosity, mostly about how long the relationship will last. And
that includes Edouard, who can tell that Béatrice is resisting him, slipping through his fingers and not really
in love, but he cannot help himself loving her passionately. He is even prepared to tolerate his beloved‘s
infidelities.
Until the day Béatrice realises she is in love, for the first time. Truly in love.
Feelings of love are depicted with such truth and acuity in this book that it feels as if Françoise Sagan is
living the events at the same time. She writes as if she were describing the altercations of her own heart, and
gives the reader one of the keys to why a relationship exists or not.
“Un peu de soleil dans l’eau froide”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
256 pages
Rights sold to: China (Zhejiang UP), Italy (Barbès),
Russia (Eksmo)
The book
Gilles is a brilliant Parisian journalist struck down by depression. He decides to leave the cynical, laughing
capital to get some rest in his sister‘s house in the Limousin region. That is where he meets Nathalie
Sylvener, a beautiful, sincere and uncomplicated woman who immediately falls in love with him.
She drops everything, moves into his small Paris apartment and gives herself to him wholeheartedly,
without cynicism, only asking that he does the same. But Gilles, who believes he too is in love, realises that
he finds this overly exclusive and intimate existence boring. Nathalie did warn him, though: she would stay
with him until he asked her to leave.
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Unusually for a book by Sagan, the female character is straightforward and honest, a woman with only one
passion. The dialogues are pure and touching. In this simple yet complex novel, the reader recognises the
music, phrasing and elegance that sadness gives people, the light, spirited, joyful yet melancholic style so
specific to Sagan. A novel about the absolute love, the unique love that each of us dreams of.
A serious, lucid novel in which Sagan explores extreme feelings and pushes her characters into their
innermost secrets, with the analytical acuity of a great novelist. A true rediscovery, a true pleasure.
Un peu de soleil dans l‟eau froide was adapted for the screen in 1971 by Jacques Deray and Françoise
Sagan.
“Un profil perdu”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
200 pages
Rights sold to: Bulgaria (Fama) Russia (Eksmo)
The book
They have come to the end of their marriage. They go to a dinner together for the last time. One last time,
they put on the show of the perfect couple. Alan, the handsome American, has proved to be mortally
jealous, and Josée, his wife, knows she can no longer tolerate it. At the dinner, Josée meets Julius A. Cram.
Short, balding, bespectacled. He is respected and universally feared, particularly by his friends, and has a
reputation as a shark in the financial world, which is how he comes to be a multimillionaire.
Julius is taken with Josée, and decides to help her escape from her failed marriage.
Josée submits willingly and, within a few days, has found a laughably cheap studio, a job for an exciting
review and her place in Julius‘s exclusive and snobbish circle of friends. She is rather bored in this world,
but accepts Julius‘s friendship and company, and quickly forgets her past with Alan. As for Julius, he
appears to be interested only in Josée‘s life and to expect nothing in exchange. Friendship for free.
But is anything ever really for free? Josée‘s friends don‘t seem to think so, and she herself has her doubts.
But how comforting to feel like a somebody again, to feel respected, almost admired, to have a position.
The truth eventually erupts when Josée finally finds love. How can Julius bear not to be the one she loves?
Will Josée dare to leave this new gilded cage?
A magnificent novel about love, and a perfect description of the comforts of bad faith.
“La fourmi et la cigale”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
256 pages
Rights sold to: China (Chu Chen Books), Russia
(Eksmo)
The book
This is a playful, previously unpublished prank from Françoise Sagan revisiting the famous La
Fontaine fable.
It is illustrated by Jean-Baptist Drouot.
―Cicada, having sung her song
All summer long,
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Found herself without a crumb
When winter winds did come.
Not a scrap was there to find
Of fly or earthworm, any kind….‖
“Un orage immobile”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
224 pages
Rights sold to: China (Zhejiang), Italy (Barbès),
Russia (Eksmo), Spain (Aticos de los libros)
The book
In the spring of 1832, Flora, an immigrants‘ daughter born, brought up, married and then devastatingly
orphaned and widowed in England, arrives in Jarnac one fine day to reopen Margelasse, her family‘s
chateau. No one from the region has yet spotted her when Nicolas Lomont, the thirty-year-old notaire,
mounts his horse and sets off for Margelasse. And so the story begins. At first it is a peaceful love story but
soon comes the drama full of sound, fury and passion.
The story is narrated entirely by Nicolas, thirty years later. Old, alone, with little predisposition to literature,
he is not sure what it is that moves him to pick up a notebook, and pen the words: ―If a reader should one
day find these pages…‖, but he perseveres. Although Lomont decides several times to stop, to throw his
manuscript in the fire, he is eventually caught up in the game. He will say everything. He is even surprised
to find himself intoxicated with words, resuscitating with just one sentence friends who have died and the
enemy who is no longer there.
The reader is gripped not only by the story itself – which is violent, unusual, hopeless – but also by the
miracle that, gradually, with every passing evening, a few years before 1870, turns an old provincial notaire
into a writer. At first he is measured, classic, but grows increasingly fiery, unbridled, lyrical… in a word:
romantic.
A book that stands alone in Sagan‘s work, close to Stendhal and Maupassant.
“Théatre”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
576 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Gremese), Russia (Eksmo)
The book
As part of its ongoing project re-publishing Françoise Sagan‘s work, Editions Stock brings three very
different plays – one of them never previously published – together in one volume.
L‟excès contraire or Le chevalier de lait, the unpublished play, is a boulevard piece. Funny, fast-paced,
spirited, it is set in Germany in 1914. And, as might be expected, it has its fair share of misunderstanding
and sexual allusions. Frédéric, a young lieutenant in the third regiment of the Saxe Uhlans, is lover for one
night to Adèle just as her husband comes home unexpectedly from a hunting expedition. The cuckold
demands reparation of the young Frédéric who proves a coward and flees the very next day. He finds refuge
with the cheated husband‘s sister, hoping he can marry her to avoid the duel.
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Un piano dans l‟herbe is perhaps closer to work we have come to expect from Sagan. The characters are all
aged around forty and come together for a holiday in the countryside where they try to rekindle their youth.
But as one of the protagonists says: ―My darling, youth is as dangerous to wake as a tiger.‖
Il fait beau jour et nuit is certainly the darkest play in this selection. A young woman has just come out of
an asylum where she has spent three years wondering whether she really is insane, examining herself and
feeling afraid of herself. She is reunited with her husband and her cousin who do not always have the best of
intentions. The reader cannot help thinking of the time Sagan herself spent in a detoxification clinic, a
period she describes in Toxique.
These three plays are complementary and confirm – if confirmation were needed – Sagan‘s great talent as a
storyteller. Her ―little music‖ achieves its full depth in dialogue that is by turns acerbic, funny, cold and
tender. A true delight.
“Le chien couchant”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
198 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Barbès), Russia (Eksmo)
The book
They have come to the end of their marriage. They go to a dinner together for the last time. One last time,
they put on the show of the perfect couple. Alan, the handsome American, has proved to be mortally
jealous, and Josée, his wife, knows she can no longer tolerate it. At the dinner, Josée meets Julius A. Cram.
Short, balding, bespectacled. He is respected and universally feared, particularly by his friends, and has a
reputation as a shark in the financial world, which is how he comes to be a multimillionaire.
Julius is taken with Josée, and decides to help her escape from her failed marriage.
Josée submits willingly and, within a few days, has found a laughably cheap studio, a job for an exciting
review and her place in Julius‘s exclusive and snobbish circle of friends. She is rather bored in this world,
but accepts Julius‘s friendship and company, and quickly forgets her past with Alan. As for Julius, he
appears to be interested only in Josée‘s life and to expect nothing in exchange. Friendship for free.
But is anything ever really for free? Josée‘s friends don‘t seem to think so, and she herself has her doubts.
But how comforting to feel like a somebody again, to feel respected, almost admired, to have a position.
The truth eventually erupts when Josée finally finds love. How can Julius bear not to be the one she loves?
Will Josée dare to leave this new gilded cage?
A magnificent novel about love, and a perfect description of the comforts of bad faith.
“La femme fardée”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
558 pages
Rights sold to: Russia (Eksmo)
The book
On board the Narcissus, the cruise arranged in honour of the diva Dorriaccie is beginning to feel like a
romantic drama. Secret passions are growing among the ranks of bourgeois characters and ruffling the
urbane feeling of calm. There is the French starlet Olga Lamouroux, the last protégée of filmmaker Simon
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Béart; the wealthy Edma Baute-Lebrêche and her boring husband Armand; Julien Peyrat, the effortlessly
charming auctioneer; the young Andréas Fayard, a professional gigolo; and, lastly, Eric Lethuillier, editor in
chief of a ―left wing‖ newspaper, escorted by his shy wife Clarisse. The latter, influenced by her
overbearing husband, tries in vain to disguise her insecurities beneath excessive make-up. She is the
―painted lady‖ who intrigues and touches other people in equal measures. While Eric openly appears in
public with Olga, Clarisse succumbs to adulterous passion in Julien‘s arms. The tension escalates, and
shows of decorum – which are not enough to hide baser feelings – become as pitiful as they are burlesque.
With operatic arias playing in the background, the masks fall one after the other, leaving one inevitable
question: does bourgeois pride leave any room for love?
In The Painted Lady, drama simmers on every page. Although it never actually breaks, the tension is
palpable and finds its only catharsis in music, which is sometimes lascivious and sensual, and often violent.
This book reverberates with Sagan‘s distinctively spirited and abrasive tone. With this bitter view of the
higher echelons of society, she gives us vitriolic social satire. She sheds the most incisive light on themes
she holds dear: love, happiness and the fragile offhandedness that brings them to glory.
***
Colombe SCHNECK
The author
Colombe Schneck was born in Paris in 1966. She is a journalist for i<TELE and France Inter where she
specializes in media. In 2006, she published a first, very successful novella L‟increvable Monsieur Schneck;
her novel Sa petite chérie came out in 2007. Her latest novel, Val de Grâce was published in 2008.
Her works at Stock
“Une femme célèbre”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
156 pages
Rights available
The book
Denise was a television star in the 60s, every Sunday she presented a show called Discorama in which she
launched and nurtured the careers of singers such as Barbara, Maxime Le Forestier and Véronique Sanson.
It was all she lived for: other people‘s talent. In January 1975 she was made redundant for political reasons.
She was hoping to come back for ―one last lap of honour‖, as she called it. In 1981 people made lots of
promises to her… not one of them was kept. She died, alone and quite forgotten, two years later.
Who was Denise really? What happens to a woman after she has been famous? After having her picture in
the papers, being courted and living with the terror that it will all stop one day? Is Jeanne Rosen that far
from this precipice beyond which you are forgotten?
Jeanne Rosen is a journalist and the author of a book that garnered unwarranted success. It took her ten
years to realise that she is wrong about her own life, that she is not asking the right questions.
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The person treading the tightrope was not her but just next to her.
After Val de Grâce, Colombe Schneck paints a portrait worthy of Denise Glaser, a television personality
whose own life was discreet and mysterious, a play of light and shadow; at the same time she creates a
mirror effect with a contemporary young journalist and writer painfully aware of how fragile glory can be. It
is a modest, sincere kind of homage as much as an exploration of the flipside of fame.
“Val de Grâce”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
142 pages
Rights sold to : Taiwan (Fish & Fish)
The book
‗Will I be forgiven for having been loved so much?‘ wonders the female narrator. Will she indeed be
forgiven the twenty-first years of her life, which she spent at the « Val de Grâce »?
How could she forget the 200-square-meter classic Hausmanian flat, in the Val de Grâce street, at the very
heart of Paris?
How could she forget the sensations – the smells, the textures – of a flat which every nook and corner, every
single scratch she knew by heart? The accumulation of furniture and objects, the unusual deco, the silvery
wall paper? How could she forget such a happy, protected childhood, where everything was allowed: sweets
on demand and on the tab at the boulangerie; nanny Madame Jacqueline‘s endless patience; the fairytale
princess‘ dreams?
At the Val de Grâce, everything was beautiful and magic. Everything seemed destined to last forever.
Children did not feel the lack of money, the effect of time passing. They were not told about the family‘s
painful history, the Shoah and the Jewish immigrant parents.
All this, however, lasted only twenty years. The mother‘s death meant the end of the parties, then the Val de
Grâce being sold off. Childhood, traces of the parents‘ presence, happy memories started to vanish. Yet
inside oneself, like a precious relic, one keeps a miniature Val de Grâce. One day, when life appears to be
going all wrong, it becomes necessary to bring the Val de Grâce back to life one last time, so as to be able to
close the door on the past for good.
“Sa petite chérie”
Specifications
122 pages
Rights available
The book
He called her his little darling. They were barely fifteen. Were they friends? Good pals? Youngsters in love?
Possibly all of these. We‘ll never know.
They spent hours together, doing their homework. She was invited often at Jean‘s house; he seemed so
much nicer than the other boys - and at that age, nothing serious can ever happen. Once only, during a
school trip, Jean asked his ‗little darling‘ if she would like to be his girlfriend. She kept her headphones on
and merely shook ―no‖ with her head – a movement she regretted all her life. She grew up. She loved. Was
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loved. But she never forgot Jean. Of course she meets him again, and at last, they allow themselves to be in
love with each other. But can this relationship be successful?
Colombe Schneck leaves the territories of family history that she explored in her absorbing first novel,
―L‘increvable Monsieur Schneck,‖ to explore anew the ever-lasting theme of ‗first love, last love,‘ offering
us a gentle version of ―When Harry met Sally‖ set in contemporary times.
“L’increvable Monsieur Schneck”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
124 pages
Rights available
The book
While staying in a country house, Colombe Schneck becomes bored and, as she always does in such a case,
she pores over a pile of old magazines. By chance, as ever, she finds herself reading a 1981 issue of ParisMatch. The cover shows Charles and Diana, but the periodical also publishes extracts from a forthcoming
book on the most sordid of post-war criminal stories. The young woman is taken aback when she discovers,
amongst other tales, the story of L‟increvable Monsieur Schneck. This Mr. Schneck was Colombe‘s grandfather. Colombe‘s parents are dead, but thankfully, her grand-mother is still alive, and confirms that this
man was indeed her husband, Max Schneck, murdered in 1949 by a young man called Simon who might
have been his lover. The newspapers of the time made the gory tale their serial of the year. The young
woman wonders how she remained ignorant of this family secret for so long and starts on an obsessive
search for the truth.
She decides to find Simon, her grand-father‘s murderer, at all costs. She learns that he was arrested shortly
after the crime was committed; that he confessed and was sent for 11 years of forced labor, of which he only
did seven… Then the leads start to multiply and the reader follows Colombe in her quest, as she considers a
multiplicity of possible outcomes.
The writing is efficient and spare, and the tale incredibly gripping, as well as profoundly affecting.
***
Vanessa SCHNEIDER
The author
Vanessa Schneider is a political journalist, and worked thirteen years for Libération before joining the
Capa Television agency. She has written a political essay and directed a documentary film. La mère de ma
mère is her first novel.
Her work
« Tâche de ne pas devenir folle »
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights available
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The book
In Vanessa Schneider‘s family, one woman always seems to hide another. So, following on from La mère de
ma mère, she now explores the strange fate of her father‘s mother.
When Ohé dies, her grandchildren lose someone they knew only as the old woman they visited regularly in
her care home in Sain-Maur. A grandmother whose wise exterior hid the fact that she had once been the
terrible Marthe, the central pillar to a ―family of nutcases‖.
After her funeral an icon is passed down, via her son, to her granddaughter. It is a painting traditionally
handed from mother to daughter, and this break with family tradition is only a continuation of a long series
of fractures. What secrets does this precious object harbour?
Ohé-Marthe leaves behind a lineage blighted by bad luck and madness. And is powerless to protect those
she loves from a fate punctuated with dramas, all set on the banks of the Danube in Romania.
As a result of her childhood in Bucharest far from her parents, Marthe has a detached and independent
personality but also a vulnerability and some peculiar quirks she never truly shakes off. Married too young
to a beautiful homosexual man with private wealth, she tries to console herself with a succession of lovers,
the disparate fathers of her many children. She ends up financially ruined, sick and alone, having
experienced the torments of the Twentieth Century. Each of her children inherits a legend constructed from
Marthe‘s feelings for the child‘s father, and from that legend they will have piece together their own life
story.
« La mere de ma mère »
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
144 pages
Rights available
The book
The narrator of this book follows in the footsteps of her mother, from Haiti at the beginning of the twentieth
century to the small flat of the rue Cardinet in Paris. Clara died at the age of one hundred last summer. The
author did not know her well enough to call her ‗Grand-mother.‘ She was already thirty when she first met
her. Her own mother was twenty-one when she decided not to see Clara again, ever, and stood true to her
decision even though mother and daughter lived a few metro stations away from each other. When
eventually, thirty-five years on, they decided to meet again, it was too late. The narrator, however, discovers
her mysterious and wild grand-mother, who was born in Haiti and came to France in 1920.
Vanessa Schneider looks back at her grand-mother‘s childhood, and recounts her life as the little curly
haired girl whom her school mates called ―sale négresse‖ (‗dirty black girl‘) and who grew up to become a
brown-skinned young woman, mother of a little boy. She recalls the tenderness of her parents, who could
not, however, offer precise reasons for their keeping away from Clara. It is Vanessa‘s task to explore the
past and try and pierce through the mystery of her origins. In bringing back to life the woman who refused,
to the end, to be labeled even as a mother, Vanessa Schneider appropriates a lineage and reconstructs her
relation to her own mother. In this affecting and appeasing tale, she gives her back an identity that escaped
her all her life
***
Alexandra SCHWARTZBROD
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The author
Alexandra Schwartzbrod is a journalist for Libération. In 2003, she published Balagan, which was awarded
the polar SNCF prize. La Cuve du Diable (2007) is her fourth novel.
Her works at Stock
“Adieu Jérusalem” – Grand Prix de Littérature Policière 2010, Prix Calibre 47 2011
Specifications
Thriller
408 pages
Rights sold to: Croatia (Hena Com), Turkey (Can)
The book
2017. Mounir is a minor employee at the Institute of Science in Kazan, Russia. The day before he leaves for
Mecca on a traditional Hajj pilgrimage, his workplace is blown up before his very eyes in an apocalyptic
cloud of smoke. During his flight, he starts having convulsions, and dies shortly after arriving.
He has unwittingly brought the most virulent plague to the Holy City: Yersinia pestis, or the Black Death,
which was believed to have disappeared in the Middle Ages.
The bacterium spreads among the pilgrims with uncontrollable speed. The dead count in their thousands.
Amid the panic, a rumour surfaces: the Jews have poisoned the water in Mecca. This rumour crosses
frontiers all the way to Jerusalem where the Palestinians and then the Israeli Arabs take retaliatory action
against the Jews. Israel is fraught with unrest, Jerusalem falls.
This catastrophe devastates the international political scene, toppling individual fates in its wake: from the
Egyptian Youssef Chedid, a volunteer doctor at the hospital in Mecca, to the Estonian Rein Laristel, freshly
appointed as UN Secretary General; from the American Susan Rice, the United States Secretary of State
facing the most perilous challenge of her career, to the Arab Israeli Commissioner Eli Bishara struggling to
overcome the chaos; down to the beautiful Turkish Jew Ana Güler, torn between Istanbul and Jerusalem.
The making of history is incarnated through these characters: from Kazan to Mecca, New York to Tel Aviv,
Washington to Istanbul, and Sicily to Dubai. Their world - our world - will never be the same again. And
what if it were true?
Lurching from hopes to illusions, and bomb attacks to reprisals, the fate of the Jewish state has constantly
been at the heart of world conflicts for sixty-two years. Whether it is about a wake-up call or an act of
conspiracy, this work of fiction sends a shiver down the spine.
“La cuve du diable”
Specifications
Thriller
286 pages
Rights available
The book
Who tried to kill Lino Wang, the Hong-Kong tycoon, now the largest textile dealer in Naples?
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A French journalist leads an investigation about the ominous infiltration, by Chinese triads, of a territory so
far controlled by the Camorra. He discovers the secret face of Naples, of a city that Europe has abandoned
to the cult of misery and God‘s will. The hero crosses the path of a mysterious woman in search of a
different life. Together, they plunge into the accursed town‘s darkest recesses.
After Jerusalem (Balagan, 2003), Alexandra Schwartzbrod takes us to Naples, where, far away from tourist
clichés, a bloody war between mafia gangs started again several months ago. This is a sensual and violent
journey through the streets of a city that continues to attract writers as well as tourists from all over the
world.
“Petite mort”
Specifications
Thriller
260 pages
Rights available
The book
―I long believed that I disliked sex. The only thing I cared for was love. Pleasure was but one aspect of it. I
was posted to the East twenty eight days before the war started, and my life was turned upside down…‖
These are the first lines of a mysterious diary posted to Viviane together with a small flask containing an
unknown perfume – a mix of amber and almond scents. Where does this text come from? Why send it to
her? Who is the woman who reveals herself so wilfully, recounting her erotic adventures without regard to
propriety? Is she connected to the story of the drowned women recently found by one of the locks of the
Ourcq canal, in front of the building where Viviane works? A psychologist specialised in addiction, Viviane
thus becomes absorbed in an inquest that leads her far away from the banks of the canal, and finds herself
crossing all borders, including that of sex.
With this original thriller, the author of the Petite mort mixes psychological and erotic suspense to draw us
in her sensual and terrifying universe.
“Balagan”
Specifications
Thriller
260 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Blanvalet), Spain (Legua
Ediciones)
The book
A few months after the second Intifada broke out, two bloody terrorist attacks devastated public restrooms
in the Jewish quarter, then in the Arab quarter, of Jerusalem. Inspector Landau – well-known for his
unfailing commitment to eradicating terrorism – is in charge of the case. Another police officer present on
the scene of both crimes is also interested in the case. Eli Bishara is an Arab Israeli whom everything
opposes to Landau. Assigned to petty morals affairs since the beginning of the Intifada, Bishara had been on
the trail of an Israeli woman who disappeared in the Jordan Valley, and his investigation leads him straight
to the attacks committed in the biblical city.
***
Ann Scott
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The author
After working as a musician and a model in London, Ann Scott settled in Paris and concentrated on writing.
Her most notable work is Superstars, hailed the ultimate ―first credible French pop novel‖.
His work at Stock
“A la folle Jeunesse”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
156 pages
Rights sold to: China (Jilin)
The book
Every year, people hope that a handful of feverish, inspired, despairing and flamboyant young writers will
produce the novel that will define their generation. For Ann Scott, it was the year 2000 with Superstars, a
story about girls, boys, drugs and techno, a third-person account that was a massive misunderstanding. To
Crazy Youth comes ten years later.
At dawn on New Year‘s Day, the narrator has arranged to meet her two best friends, Marie and Stella, at the
Café de Flore in Paris. They will just miss each other, not see each other but try to all the same during the
course of a day that will start everything from scratch again as they are reunited with those they have loved
too much, or not enough. With great lucidity, the narrator picks apart her own past and ―fame‖ and the
whole soufflé that has subsequently collapsed.
Success is a stranger who leaves you alone one morning with a cold heart. How do you stay alive when you
feel you have burned yourself right out and now only glow in fleeting moments like a song or an actor‘s
suicide that suddenly rekindles your youth.
Ann Scott manages to be both outside our lives and painfully present in them, away in the clouds and deep
inside our every detail. With its succession of memories, To Crazy Youth succeeds in telling the biggest lies
with the utmost truthfulness. And vice versa.
***
David SERGE
The author
Gründlich is the second novel of David Serge, after Les langues paternelles (2006).
His work at Stock
“Gründlich”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
306 pages
Rights available
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The book
If one day you were to write this story, you would call it Gründlich.
That would be an odd title.
It‘s a German word, not quite easy to translate. Let‘s say it evokes the idea of doing the job carefully,
meticulously, thoroughly, right until the end.
She loved Germany so much.
She always was so gründlich, your little girl. She loved you gründlich, right from the first night. You were
so seductive, in your unhappiness. After that, she did the job gründlich, nothing to complain about. She
mended you, reconciled you, swallowed you in one piece, just like she did with cherries, including the pit.
If only you had wanted to, she would have taken you to the end of the world. And to China, since you have
a meeting there, with the secret of your life.
Yet, little judge, China is far. And one fine day, you knew it all along, she would stand you up there, all
alone with a bag of cherries, in the pleasant avenues of your lovely district.
***
Catherine SÉHER
The author
Catherine Séher was born in 1960 in Nancy. After having studied agriculture and horticulture, she takes up a
double course in Literature and Film Studies. She first becomes a bookseller before moving on to book
publishing. L‟effacement is her first work.
Her work at Stock
“L’effacement”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights available
The book
They met when they were seventeen. They were tender and confident in their love. After twenty-seven years
of common life, they are a unified couple, in spite of the hardships. When, on a clear and shiny night, he
commits suicide, she feels abandoned and betrayed.
How can one understand and justify the brutality of this gesture? How can one assume daily life with two
children when everything falls apart, when family members drift away and doors are shut? How can one
answer without being clumsy to those willing to help?
L‟effacement is a painfully alive text, moving and bitter, by times hard and severe. Passing on from you to
he, Catherine Séher draws the portrait of a man who could not accept his failures in his professional life and
his disappointments in a flaking society. From the complicity of their happy days to the final desertion, she
takes up the thread of a story she now has to write alone, before the voice and the features of P*** fade
away.
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***
Amanda STHERS
The author
Since her beginnings as a writer Amanda Sthers never stopped surprising us. She followed an
autobiographical novel, Ma place sur la photo (Grasset, 2004), with a novel set in New-York‘s Jewish
district, Chicken street (Grasset, 2005), before moving to play writing with the remarkable and extremely
successful Le Vieux Juif blonde (Grasset, 2006). In 2007, she published Madeleie at Stock, followed by
Keith me in 2008.
Her works at Stock
“Les terres saintes”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
208 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Luchterhand)
The book
―Did you know that in Israel they used to use pigs to hunt down terrorists? Firstly, because they have a
highly developed sense of smell; secondly, because if a Muslim touches a pig he will be refused the
seventy-two virgins in paradise. Pigs are, therefore, kept in buildings on stilts, as required by law, so that
they never touch holy land. What better character to dream up than Harry Rosenmerck, Ashkenazi Jew and
Paris cardiologist who gives everything up to breed pigs in Israel?
And then along comes a Rabbi to contradict him: Moshe, who cannot bear this digression, particularly as
Harry lines his wallet by selling impure meat to Tel Aviv‘s hip restaurants… which inevitably leads them to
heated political discussions. And who could be more critical than a Jew when it comes to domestic Israeli
politics? You probably know the saying: when there are two Jews in the room, there are three opinions.
David, Harry‘s son, is a homosexual and a successful playwright. He writes to him too, but his father - quite
incapable of picturing his son in another man‘s arms - never replies.
Harry‘s daughter, Annabelle, leaves New York to escape a heartbreaking relationship, only to find it again
somewhere else along the way.
Finally, his ex-wife, the mother of his two children, learns that she has cancer, and re-explores their love
affair and its darker moments as if that might help her confront life and its demise.
This is a novel about each individual‘s limits, about the things we don‘t tell each other, or only too late.
About the impulses of our hearts that get caught in our throats. About fleeting moments we fail to grasp.
About small individual histories in the bigger picture of history. It‘s a novel of love.‖
Amanda Sthers
“Keith me”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
142 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Luchterhand)
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Under option in Romania, Norway, and Italy
The book
Keith me is not yet another book on the Rolling Stones. Neither is it Keith Richards‘ biography or Amanda
Sthers‘ autobiographical account of her love life.
Rather, Keith me is a sum of these three books. Amanda Sthers (Andrea Stein in the book) manages this
quite amazing literary feat by first slipping into Keith Richards‘ skin. She becomes the man whose face is
criss-crossed with wrinkles, the child lost in Dartford‘s public park.
She is Mick Jagger‘s lover and, when they make love for the first time, she turns herself into the genius
guitar player who can get the most beautiful women in the world. She takes the same drugs, she follows the
same devilish path and she survives. Implicitly, she is also a young woman with children and a broken
relationship, whom no-one really cares for and who seems to have to go through some periods of profound
unhappiness before being recognized as an artist.
How to get over one‘s grief? How to cast a fresh eye on one‘s failed relationship? Amanda Sthers manages
to do this by changing personality: she switches role and gender and steps in the shoes of the old boy who
snorted his father‘s ashes.
“Madeleine”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
162 pages
Rights sold to Germany (Luchterhand), Italy (Ponte
Alle Grazie), Romania (Echinox), Norway
(Engelstad)
The book
At forty, Madeleine lives alone in Brest. She works as an estate agent, has occasional flings with men that
don‘t stay; men she‘d like to retain but who are satisfied with one night and disappear afterwards.
One morning, she receives a call from Paris at the agency. A man called Castellot is looking for houses in
the region. He arrives the next day. This one is interested in her. At the beginning, she does not believe it.
He is a married man with children, why would he come back to her bed in a freezing town of Brittany?
She is wrong. Castellot does come back and while she makes up her mind on whether or not he is the man
of her life, he is thinking of changing his life, wife - his whole affective environment.
Both seem inconsolable but it is not the same grief that fills them. Of the two, the one who will come out
best of this strange adventure is obviously not the one that one would have expected to.
***
Paul-Loup SULITZER
The author
Born in 1946, Paul-Loup Sulitzer the the author of more than thirty best-sellers, several of which have been
published at Stock, amongst others Oriane ou la cinquième couleur and La vengeance d‟Esther.
His works at Stock
“Le Président”
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Specifications
504 pages
Rights available
The book
After five years of cohabitation, Paul Berthier is re-elected President of France as a result of his campaign
against the leader of the French extreme right party during the second tier of elections. Following the advice
of Jacques Pierrat, a clever high-ranking official who is used to manoeuvring behind the scenes, the
President nominates a predictable government with good-natured and compliant Etienne Dumay at its head.
The first blunders are followed by compromise and that‘s all it takes to convince the country that the endless
political scheming is once again back in business. Back at ―the Castle‖, only one man seems delighted by
the situation: Pierrat. Greedy for power, he imagined ways in which he could adapt the ideals of his youth
(anarchy and the class struggle) to one day have the country in his hand on the pretext of a return to order.
But Arnaud Bressard, the President‘s young and loyal advisor, stands in his way…
“La vengeance d’Esther”
Specifications
420 pages
Rights available
The book
Who is this mysterious Esther, who has brought together, in a house in the suburbs of Paris, a group of big
hearted swindlers who give the profits of their ―operations‖ to the needy? Why, night after night, does she
talk to them about her grandmother, who escaped from the pogroms in the Ukraine? And what secret
expedition is she planning? Why to the Côte d‘Azur? Sulitzer, in this stunning novel, leads us on the trace of
the fascinating Esther, who faces her trials with pluck and ends by carving out her own astonishing destiny.
“Oriane ou la cinquième couleur”
Specifications
446 pages
Rights sold to: Russia (AST)
The book
The judge Oriane Casanove is, at thirty-five, one of the most famous women in Paris. Her intelligence and
fighting spirit, at the service of the financial squad, make her fear those in power, of whom some of the most
dishonest she had incarcerated. But this beautiful woman, who is simultaneously admired and feared and on
the front page of glitter magazines is terribly alone. Devoted body and soul to her mission, she brutally
realises that she has simply forgotten to live. In a staggering narrative, Sulitzer leads us down the path of
this remarkable woman into the heart of a political-financial scheme whose goal is to have one of the most
dangerous men in France elected. Serial killers, money laundering, international trafficking, relentless
corruption: all means are used with violence by a small, cynical, mafia-like group.
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***
François TAILLANDIER
The author
After Anielka (awarded the prize for best novel of the Académie française, Stock, 1999) and Le cas Gentile
(Stock, 2001), Il n‟y a personne dans les tombes continues the mad saga launched by François Taillandier
with Option Paradis and pursued in Telling.
His works at Stock
“Les romans vont où ils veulent”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
288 pages
Rights available
The book
As the fifth and last volume in The Great Intrigue, Time to Turn is slightly anticipatory: the action takes
place after the year 2010. We are already in World V, the relocated world predicted by the mysterious
―Charlemagne.‖ It is still our world, but a bit worse. ―Time to turn‖ is an advertising slogan launched by a
leading digital network, one that has unprecedented reverberations. This turn means changing your life, your
habits, points of reference, culture, country and behaviour. It may mean a metamorphosis, being open to
innovation, adventure… or abandonment, denial, betrayal. No one knows. But the concept sheds light on
each character‘s life or death.
The main theme constitutes two counterbalanced love stories. Greg Rubien meets Clara, a former disciple
and confidante of ―Charlemagne‘s‖. At first it is a happy relationship, then it turns: Greg finds he is
overwhelmingly, irresistibly jealous. This obsession gradually poisons their relationship, and Clara runs
away.
At the same time, Nicolas, Greg‘s father, has set off to turn Africa around with his town planning, and
begins an affair with a woman called Anne-Lise, project manager for the Aelys company which provides
transport, water conveyance and digital technology. Unlike his son‘s naïve and sincere relationship, this is
between two so-called adults, both fairly disillusioned and who, deep down, don‘t really believe in it
themselves: after a few pleasurable episodes they will mostly give each other a feeling of disappointment.
Nicolas hates himself for being unfaithful to Louise but cannot find a good enough reason to behave in any
other way. How do you measure our capacity to love? This was the opening question of volume IV.
Meanwhile, François Rubien, a former vet from Villefleurs, died in 2009, leaving two houses, one in
Villefleurs and one in Vernery-sur-Arre which originally belonged to his wife. Emmanuelle, one of
Nicolas‘s sisters, has made a lot of money developing the Celiman ready-to-wear clothes chain, and sets up
home in the family house in Vernery. She then seems to mutate into a sort of protective figure, trying to
maintain a link between the past and the present.
―Homer has no conclusion, the Bible has no conclusion,‖ Flaubert commented. Well, neither have I. There‘s
no final revelation in The Great Intrigue, no big secret, no theory. It‘s about the world and how it changes,
the dead and the living, fathers and sons, the origin and the turn, love and the absence of love. I really think
I‘ve finished.‘‘
François Taillandier
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“Les romans vont où ils veulent”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
288 pages
Rights available
The book
You can step into The Great Intrigue, a series of novels in five tomes, through several different doors, and
this penultimate volume (like the final one which will be published in August), is perfectly accessibly to
readers unfamiliar with its predecessors. The characters, their circumstances and actions are revealed
gradually… as in life itself.
In this book, as with the previous ones, the chronology is fragmented, and the author says that he had to go
beyond the timeframe he had set for himself (approximately the second half of the Twentieth Century).
Here, then, he plays at telescoping time, evoking the First World War and its effects on the Maudon,
Herdoin and Rubien families as readily as a Parisian orgy attended by Nicolas Rubien and his cousin and
partner, Louise Herdoin, an occasion that takes him back to the Book of Genesis and the Judeo-Christian
myth of the Fall of Man. He talks also of generation gaps, such as when Gregory Rubien initiates his
grandfather, François - a retired war veteran - to the secrets of a television programme, Cool Quartier, a
cross between Loft Story and Plus belle la vie (the author has had fun forging a new concept in trash TV).
You could just as easily come across a Chinese businessman, the world‘s number one for internet dating
sites who invents a new universal language, Unilogue… as the anxious meditations of a curate in Vernerysur-Arre as he watches Catholicism collapse. But the way the chapters resonate with each other clearly
demonstrates that they are all about the same world, a world where the legacies of the past still weigh
surreptitiously on the living, and where advances and developments sometimes flirt with absurd and require
just as much investigation.
“Il n’y a personne dans les tombes”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
342 pages
Rights available
The book
New revelations about the characters of Option Paradis (2005) and Telling (2006): Louise and Nicolas, the
cousins who are also a couple are still together. She is allowed to keep a lover. On Sunday 21 April 2002,
we find them at the HQ of a candidate for the French presidency.
During the summer of 2005, Christophe Herdoin, Louise‘s brother, looses his shadow on a beach in
Vietnam. Will he find it again?
After her death in 1976, the truth about the free life led by the unhappily married Pauline of Vernery-surArre emerges, breaking the silence imposed by the Herdoin clan.
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In the autumn of 2009, in Brussels, Athanase, who escaped an African war, continues to think about the
Bantamas, his native people, and decides to write a novel. He will become Sobel the writer. Élie Rubien, the
Jewish hairdresser from Belleville, once an immigrant from Ukraine, dies an amnesiac. Close to Verney, the
castle of the La Ronzière has apparently fallen into the hands of a sect…
Il n‟y a personne dans les tombes offers a rich and varied tale of criss-crossing lives that reveals the
mysteries and repressed secrets of an increasingly normative society.
François Taillandier‘s characters exist in a historical context steeped in ancient myths, where architecture,
religion, economy, literature are in constant mutation. The three volumes of this triptych need not be read in
their order of publication.
There is at least one piece of good news this time: the graves are empty.
“Telling”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
282 pages
Rights available
The book
Telling: from the verb to tell, ―to tell a story‖, but also ―to speak out‖, ―to order‖. A narration that gives a
meaning and a value to actions, behaviors, and ways of life: ―An individual or a family telling, a historical
or religious telling‖.
Second volume of La Grande Intrigue (‗the Great Scheme‘), Telling continues the exploration of fifty-five
years of the evolution of the western society through the trajectories of a variety of characters related by
birth or marriage. The structure of this sequel mirrors the mosaic-like construction of the first book, and
each part of the saga could be read separately and in a different order. The readers of Option Paradis will
recognize the characters of Nicolas, the architect, his cousin and lover Louise, and their respective children
Greg and Alexandra. They will meet again with the mysterious philosopher who established the theory of
the option Paradis, as well as the members of the Rubien, Maudon and Herdoin clans, their close-knitted ties
and family secrets, the concealed hatred and the masks that threaten the official family telling. François
Taillandier is a master of the art of dissecting the tensions and contradictions and unfathomable facets of a
certain French society. Telling opens new avenues, suggests new topics for reflection, and, through the
character of Athanase, the small African boy who is arguably the true instigator of La Grande Intrigue, it
evokes the possibility of new dreams.
“Option Paradis”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
270 pages
Rights available
The book
Option Paradis starts in May 2001. Nicolas Rubien and his cousin Louise Herdouin, also his lover, spend a
few days in the house of the late Gabrielle Maudon, their grand-mother. Free from propriety and social
hypocrisy, they evoke the family history, their childhood memories, their marriages and divorces, their love
affairs.
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According to an anonymous thinker, in the 1950s Western society claimed it would establish, here and now,
the paradise, which would allow us to escape old determinisms. Nicolas describes this secular paradise, its
elaboration and its contradictions.
From present to past, from one memory to another, La Grande intrigue revisits the genre of the social novel
to recount the history of five generations in five volumes, of which Option paradis is the first.
***
Sophie TALNEAU
The author
Sophie Talneau is thirty-one years old and a graduate of the Business School of Nantes. She published On
vous rappellera with Hachette Littératures in 2003.
Her work at Stock
“La working girl”
Specifications
198 pages
Rights available
The book
Zoé is a young woman who discovers professional life through the marketing services of a company
specialising in beauty products.
The book is constructed as a series of short scenes that describe the routines and customs of a business
where what you sell is, first and foremost, an image. There is the play-boy Hugo, the always unavailable
director of the company; Léa, his assistant, a real cow; the perpetual trainee; the receptionist, with her set of
favorite people and her own way of doing things; there are also the various products - Drainator, Lissator,
etc. – as efficient on paper as they are useless in reality. In other words, everything you always wanted to
know about the world of working people, told at great pace and in the wittiest style.
***
Laurence TARDIEU
The author
Laurence Tardieu was born in Marseilles in 1972. She is an actress and a writer. She published two novels
at Arléa: ―Comme un père‖ (2002) and ―Le Jugement de Léa‖ (awarded the Prix Libraires Leclerc for the
best novel in 2004) before joining Stock, where she published Puisque rien ne dure (2006) and Rêve
d‟amour (2008).
Her works at Stock
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“Un temps fou”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
240 pages
Rights available
The book
What starts it is the memory of the short, yet endless first night Vincent and Maud spend together. They
have just met yet they dream of running away together for good. In the morning however, Vincent takes off.
They meet again several years later. It is Vincent who calls Maud. She is now married, the mother of a little
girl. Yet she appears to be still waiting for him, as if he had just woken her up, and with her, her desire and
her love for him.
They meet again, on the pretext of a job. He is a filmmaker, she is a novelist, this gives him a reason to
approach her…
Time elapses again: five, eight, maybe ten years before there can be another chance, another night that may
or may not be the last one again.
“Rêve d’amour”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
160 pages
Rights sold to: South Korea (Blue Paper), Italy
(Barbès)
Under option in: Japan, China, and Slovakia
The book
Her name is Alice Grangé, she is thirty years old. She hardly knew her mother, who died when she was five
years old. She does not remember her well, and her whole life is spent looking for this lost mother,
Blandine, whom she missed so much.
Before he dies, her father tells her that Blandine loved another man. Alice starts looking for this man, and
finds him almost too quickly. She has so many questions to ask him. How was she? What colour were her
eyes when she looked at him? Was she happy or not? Sensual? Fragile? How was she dressed? Does she
look like her? Thanks to this man, Alice discovers something she would never have guessed she would find:
two paintings made by her mother. A portrait of two lovers, one of whom looks like Alice, and a seascape.
Will Alice finally stop dreaming about love in order to live it?
Rêve d‟amour is the story of a painful absence, a lost mother, an identity quest, and, finally, of an
appeasement.
A delicate and luminous story, its restrained emotion and the strength of its writing overthrows the reader
completely.
“Puisque rien ne dure”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
128 pages
Rights sold to: Germany (Ullstein), Japan
(Hayakawa), Korea (Munhakdongne), Slovakia
(Pectus), Algeria (French language rights, Sédia),
Vietnam (Nhan Nam), China (Yingpan Brother) –
Film rights reserved
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The book
Vincent drives fast. He has to see Geneviève, the woman he once loved, and who is now about to die. On
the speedway, he starts to reminisce, reflecting on the events that broke their couple 15 years earlier. He
thinks about Clara, the child they lost, whose body was never found, and of the never-ending pain that
consumed their love. Geneviève faced the tragedy alone, keeping a record of the suffering in her diaries, as
if the writing was her life-line. Vincent tried to forget. He fled. Yet they would always have this experience
of the unbearable in common. When they meet again, Vincent finds a woman eaten away by pain and
sadness, but also appeased, and ready to face the past. In the last gestures and words that Geneviève and
Vincent share before her death, they find each other again, and bring back Clara, their little girl, through
their memories. Time has come for Vincent to reconcile himself with life.
―Puisque rien ne dure‖ describes, affectingly yet with wonderful restraint, the distress experienced in the
loss of a child. Laurence Tardieu gives a voice to a mother and a father to evoke a suffering that cannot be
communicated; she shows the ineluctable separation of the couple, and how each person finds their own
way to deal with pain. In this poignant tale, life and death, like shadow and light, cannot be dissociated.
***
Valérie TONG CUONG
The author
Valérie Tong Cuong is the author of five novels: Big (1997, Nil), Gabriel (1999, Nil), Où je suis (2001,
Grasset), Ferdinand et les iconoclastes (Grasset, 2003), and Noir dehors (2006, Grasset). She also writes
and sings for the group Quark (three albums released to-date). She is currently working on the screen
adaptation of Où je suis.
Her work at Stock
“L’ardoise magique”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
176 pages
Rights sold to: Croatia (Skolska Knjiga), Taiwan (Rye
Field).
The book
Marylou, a modest secretary and a single mother, is late for an important work meeting. Stuck in traffic and
then in the subway, she ends up sprinting through the crowd, carrying her heavy file under her arm.
Sometimes, life is all about a handful of minutes.
Albert Foehn, on the other hand, is early. He is on his way to his lawyer‘s office, where he would like to
finalize his legacy. At the age of seventy-eight, he has but a few months to live. In a few seconds, the truth
about his life is revealed.
Tom wants to propose to the capricious Libby, whom he is deeply in love with, but a stupid cycling accident
changes everything.
Prudence is a brilliant lawyer, a partner in a reputed Legal advisory office where her career is not
progressing the way she would like it to: the colour of her skin is proving to be an obstacle to her
professional progress.
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A dog, a violet macaroon, a failed suicide, the explosion of a building… the course of these characters‘
existence suddenly changes as they find themselves brought together in the same hospital. As in the domino
effect, chance deals them all a new hand.
In the vein of Short Cuts, the multiple narrative of Providence mingles and intercrosses the destiny of these
characters and creates a funny, moving and romantic tale that points to the flaws of a contemporary era
dominated by loneliness and compromises.
“Providence”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
222 pages
Rights sold to: Italy (Frassinelli), The Netherlands
(De Geus), Greece (Polis), Spain (Salamandra), Korea
(Gimmyoung), Finland (Tammi), China (Phoenix),
Russia (Pokolenie) and Vietnam (Bach Viet).
The book
Marylou, a modest secretary and a single mother, is late for an important work meeting. Stuck in traffic and
then in the subway, she ends up sprinting through the crowd, carrying her heavy file under her arm.
Sometimes, life is all about a handful of minutes.
Albert Foehn, on the other hand, is early. He is on his way to his lawyer‘s office, where he would like to
finalize his legacy. At the age of seventy-eight, he has but a few months to live. In a few seconds, the truth
about his life is revealed.
Tom wants to propose to the capricious Libby, whom he is deeply in love with, but a stupid cycling accident
changes everything.
Prudence is a brilliant lawyer, a partner in a reputed Legal advisory office where her career is not
progressing the way she would like it to: the colour of her skin is proving to be an obstacle to her
professional progress.
A dog, a violet macaroon, a failed suicide, the explosion of a building… the course of these characters‘
existence suddenly changes as they find themselves brought together in the same hospital. As in the domino
effect, chance deals them all a new hand.
In the vein of Short Cuts, the multiple narrative of Providence mingles and intercrosses the destiny of these
characters and creates a funny, moving and romantic tale that points to the flaws of a contemporary era
dominated by loneliness and compromises.
***
Eliza de VARGA
The author
Born in Paris, Eliza de Varga is an actress, lyrics writer and columnist.
Her work at Stock
“La petite fille des coulisses”
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Specifications
252 pages
Rights available
The book
While her mother Colette is giving birth to her in Paris, Élisabeth Dalan‘s father, Paul, is busy playing
roulette at Andorra‘s Casino. The child will be left in charge of Colette, a debutante actress and a true
picture story heroine. This book is the tale of a childhood spent backstage, between Pigalle and Clichy, in
the genial company of cabaret singers, magicians, and other theater and music-hall performers. It recalls the
time of the great matinees, of Bruno Coquatrix and the black and white television women presenters. It tells
the story of a world of interlopers and eccentrics who lead their life according to chance, of an atypical,
scandalous family, with its adulterous father and its crook of a grand-father implicated in the assassination
of the parliamentary Jacques de Broglie. It describes the life of a little girl who dreams of a ―100 000 volts‖
father as in Gilbert Bécaud‘s song, and absolutely refuses to stand in as the reincarnation of her aunt Betty,
struck at the age of eight by a deathly bout of meningitis.
In this witty and moving first novel, Éliza de Varga offers us a tender and portrait of a highly picturesque
and fascinating world.
***
Jaco VAN DORMAEL
The author
Filmmaker and scenario writer, Jaco Van Dormael was born in 1957 in Brussels, Belgium. He is the author
of two films, ―Toto le héros‖ (César for best foreign film and Caméra d'or in Cannes in 1991) and ―Le
Huitième jour‖ (joint best actor award in Cannes in 1996) and is, together with the Dardenne brothers, the
leading filmmaker of Belgium.
His work at Stock
“Mr Nobody”
Specifications
260 pages
Rights available
The book
Scenario, storyboard, continuity script or novel? ―Mr Nobody‖ is a bit of all. The first book of Jaco Van
Dormael, it is the story of the film that he will shoot in 2007, in English, with an international cast.
―Mr Nobody‖ develops the themes that are at the heart of Jaco Van Dormael‘s work. Born in 1972, Nemo
Nobody is convinced he is 36, yet he wakes up in 2092, an old man. 120 years old, Nobody is thus the
oldest man and the last mortal of a humanity were no-one dies anymore. This does not seem to interest or
even trouble him much. His only question is whether he led the right life; whether he was a loving
companion to the woman he was meant to love, and had the children he was meant to have. He wants to be
sure his was not any of the other possible existences, with any of the other possible women. As a little boy,
on the train station‘s platform, he once had to choose between his mother or his father as his parents were
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separating. Nobody is still unsure whether he took the right decision. The film‘s premise is based on this
essential uncertainty. We follow Nemo Nobody through his adventures, lived or dreamt, to discover, in the
last pages of the book, a little girl standing next to a pond: the little girl he never stopped loving.
***
Iris WONG
The author
Iris Wong was born in 1977 in Toulon. She writes film scenarios and works as an assistant film director.
Héroïque is her first novel.
Her work at Stock
“Héroïque”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
196 pages
Rights available
The book
Since her father became unemployed, Jeanne Kacer has had one objective: to give him back his dignity. As
far as she is concerned, he is the bravest man in the world, as courageous as those resistance fighters that are
hunted by the Gestapo in her favorite film, L‟Armée des ombres. Her father is a hero, and certainly not this
drunken man that she caught a glimpse of, lying in a van abandoned on a piece of waste ground. She must
forget this vision, fend off the shame and the humiliation. Jeanne wants to be a respected French citizen.
Only fourteen, Jeanne makes herself look older to attend a job interview. When she meets Merle, her
father‘s former boss, she asks him to take him back. This is the start of a perilous and hallucinatory journey
where the young girl faces an unsettling reality. Jeanne does not trust her own emotions, she continuously
checks herself, makes sure she is not dreaming. She counts, draws lists, goes through rituals of selfpunishment. She also wants to be a hero.
Jeanne‘s chilling visions and the enigmatic, changing personality of Merle give this first novel its
enthralling rhythm and singular style. Héroïque is a human and social tragedy told with a tone black humour
mastered to perfection by its author.
***
Edmond ZUCCHELLI
The author
Born in 1960, Edmond Zucchelli lives in Marseilles. A former reporter and chief editor as well as news
presenter for Europe 1 radio, since 2005 he has devoted his time to writing. He has published two essays
with Calmann-Lévy, and Tête de serpent is his second novel.
His work
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“Tête de serpent”
Specifications
―Blue Series‖
396 pages
Rights available
The book
A wave of biological terrorist attacks threatens Europe as well as in the United States. The infectious agent
is Yersinia Pestis, the virus of the plague. The operational unit is made up of Morocan Islamic extremists.
Diego Le Matt is a gipsy from Marseille. A retired member of the Special Forces commando, he stands as
the very personification of the solitary hero, a hard man who can be tender. Superintendent Moutot, his
long-time friend, warns him: something significant is about to happen. When he hears about the
superintendent having committed suicide, Diego understands he has been assassinated. He starts his own
inquest and discovers a highly complex network with roots in China where the mysterious ‗Snake Head,‘
the chief of a triad, is planning the mass production of the antidote for the plague.

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