01 September 2010

THE LIST:

Part I) Paris Events & READINGS (with asterisks) by dates in September 2010
Part II) Writing Workshops in Paris
Part III) News Reviews & Reviews News: publications, calls for work, new books & more! 
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Part I) Events & READINGS by DATE in September 2010 :

2 September at 7.00 P.M. Kamila Shamsie will read from and discuss her novel, Burnt Shadows. Shamsie's fifth novel follows the interconnected lives of two families brought together in Nagasaki near the end of World War II. It's an engrossing story of resilience and humanity in the face of crushing tragedy. Kamila Shamsie was born in 1973 in Karachi. She has studied and taught in the United States. Two of her previous novels, Kartography and Broken Verses, have won awards from Pakistan's Academy of Letters. She writes for The Guardian (UK) and frequently broadcasts on the BBC. “Kamila Shamsie is a writer of immense ambition and strength. She understands a great deal about the ways in which the world’s many tragedies and histories shape one another, and about how human beings can try to avoid being crushed by their fate and can discover their humanity, even in the fiercest combat zones of the age. Burnt Shadows is an absorbing novel that commands, in the reader, a powerful emotional and intellectual response.” — Salman Rushdie AT: The Village Voice Bookstore, 6 rue Princesse, Paris 6°, m° St Germain, or Mabillon. http://www.villagevoicebookshop.com/

6 September 7:00 P.M. Mingmei Yip will read from her latest novel Petals from the Sky, a Buddhist, interracial love story set in Hong Kong, Manhattan and Paris. Mingmei is also a professional qin musician and after her reading she will treat us to a special performance. Mingmei believes a novel should entertain the reader but also give something more. Her debut novel Peach Blossom Pavilion is the story of the last Chinese Geisha, who overcomes adversity to achieve a happy and peaceful life. Petals from the Sky shows how life challenges can lead to the growth of compassion and the wisdom to know when to persist and when to let go. When she was a child, Mingmei Yip made up stories like ‘how the moon reached to slap the sun’ and ‘how the dim sum on my plate suddenly got up to tango.’ At 15, she was thrilled that not only her article got published but she was paid ten dollars for it. Now Mingmei is a best-selling novelist and children’s book writer and illustrator. She has written five books in Chinese and two in English. Mingmei has also lectured in Chinese calligraphy and music – her great love in music is the qin – the most ancient Chinese stringed instrument on which she gives frequent lectures and performances. http://www.mingmeiyip.comAT: Shakespeare & Co., 37 rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel. http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/

6 September from 9.00 P.M. to LATE: SpokenWord! Share your work on any theme or work on the theme of the night. Join SpokenWord Paris’ meetup group or see their blog at : http://spokenwordparis.blogspot.com/ David: “I’m bored of themes, so instead here's an idea - for the first SpokenWord in September, write a deliberately ugly poem. So many poems aim at beauty or the sublime. Let's turn that on it's head and aim for ugliness. That's your starting point. Go anywhere you like from there. Of course you might find an ugly poem, or a poem that aims at ugliness, written by some famous or infamous writer. Or one that simply describes something ugly. But what I think will be most interesting is to try to write something yourself without your usual goals, whatever they are, that you have when you're writing poetry, but write a poem that deliberately aims at some kind of ugliness.” AT: Cabaret Populaire/Culture Rapide, 103 rue Julien Lacroix Metro Belleville/Pyrénées 75020 Paris

8 September 7:00 P.M. Rencontre avec VIRGINIE DESCOUTURES pour son essai "Les mères lesbiennes" À partir d’une enquête par entretiens auprès de femmes en couple, cet ouvrage propose une analyse sociologique de la parentalité lesbienne appréhendée à partir de l’exercice du travail parental fourni par les mères. Au-delà des individus, ce sont les deux membres d’un couple qui ont été rencontrés couples de même sexe et ayant élaboré un projet parental, conduisant à diverses configurations familiales organisées autour de l’adoption, la coparentalité, l’insémination artificielle avec donneur connu ou inconnu, ou encore un rapport hétérosexuel. Le but de cette recherche est à la fois de révéler une vie quotidienne peu connue, souvent rendue invisible par le stigmate pesant sur l’homosexualité, et de réfléchir sur « la » famille et le cadre hétéronormatif dans lequel elle se définit. Travailler sur la parentalité lesbienne, c’est en effet interroger par la marge un ensemble de normes régissant le couple et la filiation à l’intersection de la sexualité et de la domination masculine, se demander : comment est-on mère quand on est lesbienne ? Comment est-on mère avec une autre femme, c’est-à-dire quand la « différence des sexes » est absente et quand on n’en a pas le statut légal ? Et, finalement : comment est-on mère « tout court » dans la société contemporaine ? Virginie Descoutures est sociologue, enseignante-chercheure au département de sociologie de l’Université de Galatasaray à Istanbul et membre du laboratoire CRESPPA-GTM (CNRS-Université Paris VIII). Préface d’Eleni Varikas, professeure de science politique et d’études du genre à l’Université Paris VIII. Les mères lesbiennes est publié aux Presses Universitaires de France. AT : la librairie Violette and Co, 102 rue de Charonne, 75011 Paris, M° Charonne ou Faidherbe-Chaligny. www.violetteandco.com/librairie/

12 September 7:30 P.M. Ken Mackenzie, Abraham (in English). The play is about a young man obsessed by the Biblical Abraham-Isaac story and worried about his father, who is having an affair with a younger woman, struggling to expose government corruption – and suffering from a stroke. It is a serious comedy. Mackenzie, a South African-born writer and journalist, has published two novels, plus some short stories and poetry. He worked in London for The Times, The Economist and West Africa magazine before coming to Paris in 1989 to work for the International Herald Tribune. AT Carr's Pub & Restaurant, 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001, Metro Tuileries 06 14 67 18 58 Moving Parts www.stefcampion.com/Movpart/MPhome.html

13 September 7:00 P.M. Richard Flanagan, one of the most original and impressive novelists working in the English language today. He will read from Wanting, a novel of magnificent power and reach. ‘One of the best novels of this year… Flanagan’s cast of virtuoso characters…are vivid, memorable beings, burnt into the retina of the imagination long after the novel comes to an end… An irresistibly good story.’ The Times. ‘In dense, poetic prose, Flanagan characterises something that exists across human experience, above and beyond historical particulars and cultural differences: "The way we are denied love. And the way we suddenly discover it being offered us, in all its pain and infinite heartbreak."’ Giles Foden, The Guardian. Richard Flanagan was born in Tasmania in 1961. Regarded internationally as one of Australia's pre-eminent novelists, his award-winning novels Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould’s Book of Fish and The Unknown Terrorist have been published to popular success and critical acclaim in 27 countries. He directed a feature film of The Sound of One Hand Clapping and co-wrote the screenplay of Baz Luhrmann’s film, Australia. Tonight he will be introduced by and in discussion with Steven Gale.AT: Shakespeare & Co., 37 rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel. http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/

15 September 7:00 P.M. Douglas Kennedy Born in Manhattan, he studied at Bowdoin College and Trinity College, Dublin. He has been the administrative director of the Dublin theater, The Peacock, a playwright, and written radio drama for the BBC and Irish radio. The author of twelve books -- three travel books and nine novels -- he has been described by Le Monde as the best known American writer in France. In 2006, Kennedy was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres. Kennedy divides his time between Maine, London and Paris. AT: the American Library 10, rue Général Camou 75007, RER-M° Alma-Marceau. www.americanlibraryinparis.org

16 September 7:00 P.M. Rencontre avec l’écrivaine américaine Vanessa Place, de passage à Paris, pour la parution de son roman Exposé des faits (e®e). Lecture par la romancière Chloé Delaume. Projet littéraire singulier et iconoclaste, Exposé des faits reflète son auteure, écrivaine, critique d’art, éditrice et avocate à Los Angeles. “Docutexte” en prise avec le réel, cas simplement présentés sans ajout de commentaire. A l’heure de l’omniprésence des séries policières et des faits divers reconstitués, sensasionalisés, Vanessa Place s’empare des matériaux issus de son quotidien d’avocate et annule les effets de suspens et autres accessoirisations émotionnelles des faits. La langue de la transcription judiciaire (dossier à charge, dossier de la défense, réfutation, enquête sur des affaires de prostitution, de viol, de violence) se veut neutre et objective mais ne peut échapper à la subjectivité de ses acteurs. Vanessa Place a publié cinq fictions et deux essais ; Exposé des faits est son premier livre traduit en français. Chloé Delaume est l’auteure notamment des Mouflettes d’Antropos, Le cri du sablier, J’habite dans la télévision. AT : la librairie Violette and Co, 102 rue de Charonne, 75011 Paris, M° Charonne ou Faidherbe-Chaligny. www.violetteandco.com/librairie/

19 September 7:00 P.M. Barbara Hammond Eva the Chaste, a new monologue play. A special performance just outside Shakespeare and Company (please note the play will be cancelled if there is rain). It takes place in that hour when night turns to dawn on a June morning on Dublin’s Coast Road, where, after 20 years in Paris, Eva has returned to her birthplace to face the consequences of an act of love. Aedin Moloney, whose mesmerizing interpretation of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in James Joyce’s Ulysses brings the house down every year at Colum McCann’s Bloomsday celebration, performs. Barbara Hammond is a 2010 Edward Albee Fellow, and her plays and film have been seen and won awards from Queensland, Australia to Dublin, Ireland – but mainly in New York City where she is a long-time resident of the Lower East Side. AT: Shakespeare & Co., 37rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel. http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/

20 September from 9:00 P.M. to LATE: SpokenWord! Share your work on any theme or work on the theme of the night. Join SpokenWord Paris’ meetup group or see their blog at : http://spokenwordparis.blogspot.com/ AT: Cabaret Populaire/Culture Rapide, 103 rue Julien Lacroix Metro Belleville/Pyrénées 75020 Paris

22 September, 7:00 P.M. Rencontre avec CATHY BERNHEIM, PASCALE MOLINIER et (sous réserve) ELSA DORLIN pour le lancement du n° 42 de la revue MULTITUDES "Gouines rouges et viragos vertes" - Ce numéro de la revue Multitudes est consacré au féminisme. Ce dossier parcourt la situation du féminisme et des luttes propres aux femmes en reprenant deux versants essentiels. L’un d’eux est consacré aux luttes et aux protagonistes du féminisme des années 60-70 et tourne principalement autour de la question des "gouines rouges". Ce terme de "gouines rouges" permet de dégager les axes essentiels de la problématique féministe de ces années-là, qui a oscillé entre affirmation sexuelle et lutte de classe. Le second versant porte sur la situation du féminisme à l’heure actuelle et se caractérise par ce nouveau penchant de "viragos vertes". Ce concept rend alors visibles les nouveaux tournants du féminisme : allant de nouvelles pratiques et groupes de luttes politiques aux nouvelles questions, économique et écologique. Un dossier qui s’annonce, volontairement, provoquant et provocateur afin de jeter de nouvelles vues sur la question. Ont participé à ce dossier : Pascale Molinier, Sandra Laugier, Anne Sauvagnargues, Elsa Dorlin, Cathy Bernheim, Anne Querrien, Julia Taddei, Marie-Hélène Bourcier, Antonella Corsani, Sylvie Tissot, Chantal Latour, Beatriz¨Preciado, Virginie Despentes, Empar Pineda, Cristina Garaizabal, Isabelle Stengers, Starhawk, Vinciane Desprez. AT : la librairie Violette and Co, 102 rue de Charonne, 75011 Paris, M° Charonne ou Faidherbe-Chaligny. www.violetteandco.com/librairie/

23 September 7:00 P.M. In collaboration with Festival America at Vincennes we present two of America’s most exciting writers Nick Flynn and Adam Haslette who will be reading from a selection of their work. Afterwards stay for piano music (upstairs) with jazz maestro Steve Tromans. Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir and has been translated into ten languages. He is also the author of two books of poetry, Some Ether, which won the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, and Blind Huber. Some of the places his poems, essays and non-fiction have appeared in include The New Yorker, The Paris Review, National Public Radio’s ‘This American Life,’ and The New York Times Book Review. He worked as a ‘field poet’ and as an artistic collaborator on the documentary film Darwin’s Nightmare, which won an Academy Award for best feature documentary in 2006. One semester a year he teaches at the University of Houston, and spends the rest of the year elsewhere. Adam Haslett is the author of the short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here and the novel Union Atlantic. His story collection was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award and has been translated into 15 languages. His essays and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, Zoetrope All-Story, Best American Short Stories, The O'Henry Prize Stories, and National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts. In 2006, he won the PEN/Malamud Award for accomplishment in short fiction and has also won the PEN/WinshipAward for the best book by a New England author. A graduate of Swarthmore College, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Yale Law School, he has been a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Columbia University. Steve Tromans is a jazz pianist and composer. Tonight he will perform ‘Bebop of the Beat Generation’ - solo piano deconstructions of bebop jazz classics that influenced the Beats. ‘Fearlessly exploring the margins of regular jazz and free-improv.’ John Fordham, The Guardian. AT: Shakespeare & Co., 37 rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel. http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/

23 September 7:00 P.M. To launch Festival America, two authors, Ethan Canin & Aleksandar Hemon, will present their latest novels. Ethan Canin will read from and discuss America America. Ethan Canin’s stunning novel is about America as it was and is, a remarkable exploration of how vanity, greatness, and tragedy combine to change history and fate. Ethan Canin is the author of six books, including the story collections Emperor of the Air and The Palace Thief and the novels For Kings and Planets and Carry Me Across the Water. He is on the faculty of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and divides his time between Iowa and northern Michigan. He is also a physician. Aleksandar Hemon will read from and discuss The Lazarus Project. This stunning novel begins with the story of nineteen-year-old Lazarus Averbuch, an Eastern European Jewish immigrant, who was shot to death on the doorstep of the Chicago chief of police and cast as a would-be anarchist assassin. A century later, a young Eastern European writer in Chicago named Brik becomes obsessed with Lazarus's story. Brik enlists his friend Rora - a war photographer from Sarajevo - to join him in retracing Averbuch's path. Through a history of pogroms and poverty, and a prism of a present-day landscape of cheap mafiosi and even cheaper prostitutes, the stories of Averbuch and Brik become inextricably intertwined, creating a truly original, provocative, and entertaining novel that confirms Aleksandar Hemon as one of the most dynamic and essential literary voices of our time. The Lazarus Project was Shortlisted for the National Book Award in 2008. Born in Sarajevo, Aleksandar Hemon came to Chicago in 1992. The author of the acclaimed Nowhere Man and The Question of Bruno, he writes stories and essays that appear regularly in The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, and Best American Short Stories. AT: The Village Voice Bookstore, 6 rue Princesse, Paris 6°, m° St Germain, or Mabillon. http://www.villagevoicebookshop.com/

23 to 26 September, FESTIVAL AMERICA Adam HASLETT, Amanda BOYDEN, Barry GIFFORD, Benjamin PERCY, Bret Easton ELLIS, Claire MESSUD, Colin HARRISON, Colum McCANN, Craig JOHNSON, Dan FANTE, Dany LAFERRIERE, Don WINSLOW, Douglas KENNEDY, Eduardo MANET, Enrique SERNA, Ethan CANIN, Gil ADAMSON, Guadalupe NETTEL, Guillermo ARRIAGA, Harlyn GERONIMO, J. M. SERVÍN, Jake LAMAR, James FREY, James GRADY, James NOËL, Jay McINERNEY, Jayne Anne PHILLIPS, John BIGUENET, Jon RAYMOND, Joseph BOYDEN, Karla SUAREZ, Kim THÚY, Lauren GROFF, Leonardo PADURA, Louise ERDRICH, Lydia LUNCH, Lyonel TROUILLOT, Mauricio SEGURA, Monique PROULX, Nadine BISMUTH, Nancy LEE, Nathan SELLYN, Nick FLYNN, Pierre SZALOWSKI, Richard LANGE, Richard PRICE, Richard RUSSO, Richard VAN CAMP, Ron RASH, Sergio GONZÁLEZ RODRÍGUEZ, Steve ERICKSON, Stuart DYBEK, Tania JAMES, Wendy GUERRA, Yanick LAHENS, Ying CHEN AT: various locations in Vincennes and around, Festival America, www.festival-america.org

25 September 3:00 P.M., American author Don DeLillo will read from his work. Théâtre de Odéon – Grande salle (6 to 18€) 01 44 85 40 40 www.theatre-odeon.fr

26 September 7:30 P.M. Ghyslain Martin, Les Enfants du Soleil (en français) AT Carr's Pub & Restaurant, 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris, Metro : Tuileries 06 14 67 18 58 Moving Parts www.stefcampion.com/Movpart/MPhome.html

27 September 7:00 P.M. Anne Marsella will read from The Baby of Belleville, her delightful new novel filled with intrigue, eccentric characters and many surprises. Jane de la Rochefoucault has just brought her firstborn home to her flat in Paris and her world is in chaos. As well as the nappies, the night-time gurgling, and the constant feeding, she can barely move for packing cases and the cumbersome musical instruments that her aristocratic French composer husband keeps inventing. And then one evening, a knock on the door brings some mysterious visitors: three kung fu experts bearing gifts for the baby. When the kung fu trio go missing (along with some cars), Jane and Charles suddenly find themselves being interrogated by two French police inspectors who suspect that the kung fu-ers had links to Muslims Without Borders - an organization dedicated to freeing the brothers wherever they are in chains, and - ma foi! - that Jane’s mother-in-law may have a hand in the whole thing too. Originally from California's San Joaquin Valley, Anne Marsella now lives in Paris with her husband – a jazz musician – and their son. Her previous books are an acclaimed collection of stories, The Lost and Found and Other Stories (NYU Press), Patsy Boone (Editions de la Différence) and the novel Remedy (Portobello, 2007). AT: Shakespeare & Co., 37 rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel. http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/

29 September 7:00 P.M. Rencontre avec CHRISTINE BARD pour la parution de son essai "Une histoire politique du pantalon" - L’essai revient sur l’histoire du pantalon, symbole de la masculinité. Au cours de la Révolution, il devient un symbole républicain. Mais les femmes n’accèdent toujours pas sur le plan vestimentaire et sociale à la liberté et à l’égalité. Au fil des siècles, artistes, féministes, révolutionnaires, voyageuses s’approprient l’habit masculin qui ne se féminise que dans les années 1960-1970. Christine Bard est historienne, professeure à l’Université d’Angers, membre de l’Institut Universitaire de France de 2000 à 2005, préside depuis sa création en 2000 l’association Archives du féminisme qui a fondé le Centre des archives du féminisme à Angers. Elle a notamment publié, Les filles de Marianne. Histoire des féminismes 1914-1940, Les Garçonnes. Modes et fantasmes des Années folles, Un siècle d’antiféminisme, Le Genre des Territoires, Ce que soulève la jupe.Une histoire politique du pantalon est publié au Seuil. AT : la librairie Violette and Co, 102 rue de Charonne, 75011 Paris, M° Charonne ou Faidherbe-Chaligny. www.violetteandco.com/librairie/

30 September 2010, 7:00 P.M.

John Connolly
is a successful thriller author. He will present his last novel The Gates. John Connolly is based in Dublin but divides his time between his native city and the United States. Free, reservations adoherty@centreculturelirlandais.com. AT : Le Centre Culturel Irlandais, 5 rue des Irlandais, 75005 Paris. www.centreculturelirlandais.com, Tel: 01 58 52 10 30.

30 September 7:00 P.M. Elizabeth Murray presents Monet's Passion: Ideas Inspiration and Insights from the Painters Garden, AT: WH Smith, 248, rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris M° Concorde Exit: rue Cambon. For more info: http://www.whsmith.fr/ They would like you to RESERVE, so see the site for details.

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