9/25/14 - Back to Cornelia

September is the Back to - school/yoga/ swimming/diet/whatever you want month !

It is also the Back to the Cornelia French Nights month !

Come and join us on the 25th of September 
at the Cornelia Street Cafe 

at 6 pm 
for a new French Literature moment dedicated to Titles.

Writing begins or ends with the good title,
the one which is going to give the tone of the book.

French writers are often paying a lot of attention to their titles 

and one can feel the good vibes to the book through them.

That's exactly what happened to us with the three books
we picked to start the season. 

They made us laugh and excited our curiosity. 

We hope you'll be craving to come hear excerpts of them :

The Extraodinary Journey of the Fakir who got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe 

by Romain Puertolas, 
published in 2013 (Le Dilettante) 

and translated into English
in July 2014 (Random House publishers)

A fakir goes to Ikea to find a brand new bed of nails. 
He has a fake 100-euro note in his pocket. 

He won't find what he is looking for 
but will be trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe 

and embarked on an European tour.

How to find love in Paris when you're a fifty year old parisian woman (and other crucial questions) 
by Pascal Morin, 

published in 2013 (Le Rouergue/Actes Sud)

Catherine Tournant, a fifty years old divorcee is about to find a second chance in love. 
Natacha Jakowska, her student, leaves home and school 
after her mother died and she changed her look. 
The book intricates many characters' story who are linked 
by a plumber and by their love for Paris. 

There's no story here, 
by David Thomas, 

published in 2013, Stock

The book is a collection of short short stories which fit on a single page. 

The art of sudden fiction is precise and accurate.

We hope to see you on the 25th 

at 6 pm 

at The Cornelia Street Cafe, 

28 Cornelia Street, NY

West 4th on A/E/1/2/3 

ANATOLE FELDE

Our latest French night at the Cornelia was dedicated 

to a French playwright that we love : 

Hervé Blutsch.

We read a short play, called Anatole Felde, which Hervé Blutsch wrote in 2001, and also named "drame bural", a minor office drama, creating a kind of a new "genre" !

The readers were, from right to left,

Nathalie Bryant, John Galbraith Simmons, Philippe Aufort, Tom Radigan, Isabelle Milkoff and David Kalal and Emmanuelle Ertel read the stage directions

The story takes place in an office with three characters. They share the same office. One of them is so tired that he is about to quit and leave not only the office, but life in general. His colleagues realize very quickly that he is much more interesting dead than alive.


If you missed it, or if you just want to listen to it again, you can enjoy it through this video below




Hopefully, we'll see you in the fall for more enjoyable French Literature nights at the Cornelia.

Have a great summer

4/14/14 - Play time.

As is our tradition when flowers bloom, our next French night is dedicated to theater.

We are welcoming one of the most hilarious and cruel contemporary playwrights.

Herve Blutsch

He likes cruel situations and has invented new genre of plays. In Gzion, a « space drama » and the first play we read in May 2012, at The Cornelia Street Cafe, he put together three main characters in a spaceship, Gzion, somewhere in the outer space. As they don't have any chance to survive, they become so delusional until one of them suddenly appears dressed as a bear. Then the comical farce changes into a cruel tragedy. 

Anatole Felde, the short play we are going to read on 4/14/14,

 has the same farcical and tragic feeling. 

It's a short play, as a short story in an artistic compression of a novel.  As Gzion was a "drame spacial" ("a play about outer space"), Anatole Felde is a "drame bural" which is a theatrical version of the office of cruelty.
The story takes place in an office with three characters. They share the same office. One of them is so tired that he is about to quit and leave not only the office, but life in general. His colleagues realize very quickly that he is much more interesting dead than alive.

The play was published in a collection of short plays by the Editions Théâtrales in 2010.

Hervé Blutsch is also an author supported by Theatre Ouvert in Paris, a theater dedicated to contemporary French theater.

Please come and join us for a comical yet cruel night, laughter at the sharp edge of satire.

4/14/14
6pm

at Cornelia Street Cafe

Cornelia Street 28

NYC, 10021

Our first 2014 night - 2/24/14

This first French night of the year was dedicated to sons, sons and their relationships with their fathers or their mothers.
It was an evening of depth and wit, the reading resonated in every one's mind as we all are sons or daughters and some of us know now the parental side of (the wild side?)  having sons or daughters.

As usual the evening began by chatting and drinking a glass or two of wine.

Happy new people and happy faithful friends

3

Then Emmanuelle Ertel launched the readings by presenting the first excerpt,  a short story, Tout pour lui plaire/Everything To Please Him, written by Carole Fives and translated by Brett Ray. It is part of a bigger collection named When Happiness Finds Us, published in France in 2013.



The son in this short story ceaselessly tried to get his father's approval, by becoming a painter, then a writer, then a comedian making fun of his own father. He finally understands that there is no way to please him, no way to make his father satisfied. It's hopeless.

Emmenuelle read the short story in French and Brett Ray read his own translation, alternating the language as the son changed his professions.

Everyone is focused,  silently listening to the echoes this story sounded in everyone's mind !

Then Isabelle Milkoff took over and presented the next excerpt from Veronique Olmi's latest novel - La nuit en verité/The Truth About The Night.

The three first chapters were read : in French by Isabelle and in English by John Galbraith Simmons.

The young Enzo lives with his mother Lioubia in a big apartment in the center of Paris, a neighborhood in the middle of the city that is popular with the tourists. He goes to school while Lioubia cleans the apartment and has tea with her friends. But Enzo is a fat boy, clumsy and frequently bullied by his class mates and even once by the gym teacher when he forced him to try to climb at the top of a rope, even though it was impossible for him. On that same Friday evening he came back home in the rain and as he got into the house, he heard Lioubia and her friends. He knew immediately he would not be able to get to the Nutella and have the snack he so desperately wanted.

Now it's time for the last excerpts.

The last but not the least.

They were taken from The Unbreakable Boy/Le Garçon incassable by Florence Seyvos.

Philippe Aufort read the French part of the chapters we chose, Tom Radigan read the English that he had helped to translate. The first draft of the translation by Isabelle Milkoff and Catherine Dop-Miller found the English voice to this French story.

The book tells two stories of about a son and his father - 

Buster Keaton's story as well as the story of Henri, the narrator's step-brother. Henri is handicapped since birth but his father pushed him to stand, walk and live like any other kid.
But Henri was not like any other kid.

"Henri’s father says : «Children, you have to break them. He truly thinks that you cannot raise children without breaking their spirit, that there is no other way.  Not just make them bend, but break them." 

"His father forced him to kneel outside on the cement, telling him he would stay there until he decided to greet Yacouba politely. Henri stayed there an hour, yelling, crying with rage and still refusing to yield. "

"F...... Henri, a little reed that bends but doesn’t break."

Again, everyone is listening and feeling the tension created by the words. 

Some follow along by reading the texts. 

That's all, folks

We wished you were here to share these very deep and breathtaking moments.

See you next time

It will be in April, the 14th,

when spring is back

At last !

We will be glad to see you all again

Have a nice end of winter 

and save our next French night date !

Sons at the Cornelia on 2/24/14

We hope that 2014 has started well and we welcome you to our next French Literature night at the Cornelia Street Cafe, on February 24th from 6 pm till 7.30 pm

The evening will be dedicated to "sons".

The three excerpts we chose to read are linked by the specific theme about the relationship between parents and their sons.

First, the character in Carole Fives' short story - Anything to please him - tells how his efforts to please his father were in vain  as he changed professions, first becoming an artist, then a writer, and finally a comedian. He could never get the slightest acknowledgement from his beloved father even though everyone else congratulated him about his accomplishments. This short story is part of bigger collection called - When Happiness Finds Us - that was released in 2010 by Le Passage-Paris/New York éditions






Veronique Olmi's main character  in The truth about the night is a young fat boy, alienated at school, who can't help but disappoint his mother, especially when she gathers with her friends in the kitchen where he would like to get into the jar of Nutella. The novel was published in 2013 by Albin Michel.

In The Unbreakable boy, Florence Seyvos tells the story of Buster Keaton and his father. This leads her to reflect upon her own childhood when she witnessed the strong and difficult relationship of her step-father with his handicaped son, Henri. The father appears to be tough, demanding and without pity, but this is clearly for his son's sake.  This novel was published by Editions de l'Olivier in 2013

 

Carole Fives

Veronique Olmi

Florence Seyvos

Please come and join us to share those strong and intense moments of French literature.
2/24/14
6pm

at Cornelia Street Cafe

Cornelia Street 28

NYC, 10021

Chevillard's night

We had another wonderful  French night, two weeks ago, 

welcoming Eric Chevillard's novels.

Eric Chevillard has been publishing since 1987.

He is published by the very famous and very demanding French publisher Editions de Minuit and his novels place him in the tradition of humoristic novelists such as Laurence Sterne. The stories he tells have a touch of nonsense and his characters are misfits who could figure in a Beckett or a Kafka novel. He has the style of a literary master : his sentences expand through absurd details and considerations about the character's story.

As for example, in the begining of Prehistoric times the narrator gives precise details about the uniform he has to wear : the uniform doesn't suit him because it belonged to Boborikine, the man he replaced. Boborikine didn't quite fit in the uniform either because it belonged before him to Crescenzo who was smaller and thiner. Both men were physically different but had to wear the same uniform and respect to the job it represents : 

"a uniform needs nobody except to make it stand".

Isabelle Milkoff and Margaret George reading the first chapters of Prehistoric Times

In "Lecture with Slides", a chapter taken from The posthumous works of Thomas Pilaster, the lecturer is warning his audience about a very strong ecological issue : "the desert is advancing". The precise description of this sandy invasion is mixed with foolish considerations about the causes and dangers it represents. The irony in Eric Chveillard's novel is met with crualty. 

Philippe Aufort and Tom Radigan reading "Lecture with Slides"

with a strong conviction !

It was a convincing and scary reading, indeed

because, Ladies and gentlemen, be aware :

"The desert is advancing"

In The Rabbit,  the bunny shape of a head-rest cover in a car is very quietly and precisely described. It is the perfect illustration of our age that insists to "surround ourselves with children's toys".  It takes a while before we understand that this head-rest cover designed as a bunny is what is left of a wrecked car.

Emmanuelle Ertel launched the reading of the short story 

which was translated by her students of the Master of Literary Translation in NYU.

Bonnie Zaleski, Victoria Sheehan and Brett Ray 

are here on the starting blocks to begin their reading 

Everyone is carefuly listening

and our faithful young audience is having fun.

After the reading some time for a chat

and for pictures !

It is so nice to make people happy !

The translations of the three Chevillard's excerpts were done by

Alison Waters for Prehistoric times

Christopher Clarke for The posthumous works of thomas Pilaster

and by students in the Master of LiteraryTranslation program at NYU for The Rabbit

If you missed Chevillard, go visit his daily blog : http://l-autofictif.over-blog.com/

See you soon, folks !

We'll let you know as soon as possible when our next French Night is happening.