On the 23rd of June 2023, Eastbound author Maylis de Kerangal was in conversation with Catriona Seth at Balliol College as part of the Maison Française d’Oxford Alumni Association Day.
What is "reality" in fiction and what is "truth" in a literary sense ? Join author Lucie Paye and her translator Natasha Lehrer for discussion on Absence. Author and translator will be interviewed by founder of Les Fugitives Cécile Lee, to share their perspectives on fiction and literary truth.
Drop in at Conway Hall, where we’ll be selling our wares in fine company. It’s a unique chance to see the books all together… and then buy lots of them and take them home, with some deals and discounts.
Listed in the Financial Times‘ mid-year best fiction in translation, Lucie Paye‘s remarkable debut novel Absence delves into the artistic process. While a painter battling against the blank canvas sees a mysterious female figure emerge under his brushes, a dying woman writes to her long-lost son.
Joined by Michèle Roberts, whose latest novel Cut Out focuses on the young women assisting Matisse in the making of his famous cut-outs, Lucie Paye and her translator Natasha Lehrer, will discuss art as creation and destruction, the creative role of the unconscious, the power of love against loss and translation as a revelatory process.
Tickets and more info here.
Meet Shumona Sinha and Maylis de Kerangal in a conversation about their newly translated short novels, Down with the Poor! and Eastbound.
Joined by translator & author Lauren Elkin and Russel Williams, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature (American University of Paris), they will discuss states of confinement and State violence, freedom of movement and freedom of speech, identification (or not) with the Other (with or without a common language), and the role of literature in revealing boundaries as grey areas.
Tickets and more info here.
Where are we safe? Maylis de Kerangal’s Eastbound tells the story of a Russian conscript looking for escape on the Trans-Siberian railway and finding a French woman who might offer it. The Khan, Saima Mir’s debut, follows a British-Asian lawyer as she returns to her northern hometown after her father’s murder, which has left a crime syndicate in disarray.
More information and tickets here.
The outsider experience is central to the newly translated, prize-winning novels by Fatima Daas and Shumona Sinha. In her rhapsodic debut, The Last One, Daas tries to find herself amid the contradictions of being French-Algerian, Muslim and gay. Sinha’s critically acclaimed Down with the Poor! offers a deeply emotional account and morally complex critique of European asylum systems and the bureaucracies and mindsets upholding the status quo.
More info and tickets here.
We invite you to join Lucie Paye and her translator Natasha Lehrer, to toast the publication of Lucie’s debut novel Absence on 21 June, at Tenderbooks, just a few minutes away from the National Gallery (which features in the book!)
Starts at 6pm, with a reading from Lucie at 6.45pm.
Please RSVP to Jessie, at publicist@lesfugitives.com
Join Lauren Elkin and Alexandra Kingston-Reese in conversation about the contemporary essay in this free online event.
Organised by Tangerine Press, the Uncorrected Independent Publishers’ Fair brings together seven of the UK's best indie publishers: Flipped Eye Publishing, Les Fugitives, Prototype, Repeater Books, Rough Trade Books, Strange Attractor Press, Tangerine Press + L-13 Light Industrial Workshop "dishonesty box".
On the opening night of this year’s Beyond Words Festival, Jeanne Benameur and her translator Bill Johnston will be in conversation with critically acclaimed debut author of Keeping the House Tice Cin.
They will discuss Jeanne’s recently published UK debut The Child Who and its poetic exploration of grief, intergenerational silences, the limits of hospitality and nature's power to heal, interspersed with live readings from the book in French and English.
More information and tickets here.
As part of this year’s Beyond Words Festival in Scotland, Jeanne Benameur will be in conversation with her translator Bill Johnston.
They will discuss Jeanne’s recently published UK debut The Child Who and its poetic exploration of grief, intergenerational silences, the limits of hospitality and nature's power to heal, interspersed with live readings from the book in French and English.
More information and tickets here.
Join Lauren Elkin and UCL Urban Laboratory co-director & English Literature Professor Matthew Beaumont at UCL, where they’ll be discussing Lauren’s love letter to Paris in iPhone notes No.91/92: notes on a Parisian commute.
From musings on Virginia Woolf and Georges Perec, to her first impressions in the aftermath of the 2015 terrorist attacks, Lauren Elkin’s bus diary queries the lines between togetherness and being apart, between the everyday and the eventful, as she registers the ordinary makings of a city and its people.
The event is free and can be booked here.
To celebrate the publication of Erica Van Horn’s new book We Still Have the Telephone , published on 11 April in Les Fugitives’ new English originals collection The Quick Brown Fox, the author will read excerpts from her book, introduced by Trinity College Professor Julie Bates, then join in conversation with poet Maurice Scully on the occasion of his latest collection Airs, published by Shearsman.
The event is free and open to the public - no need to book. Join the writers for a drink afterwards at the pub across the road!
On 9 September Lauren Elkin will be speaking with Deborah Levy, traveling through the city, literature, the mind & the human body for our online launch. Tickets now live from LRB Bookshop!
‘Paris in intense, dramatic closeup — an insider’s entrancing view.‘ – Michèle Roberts
On the day of the book’s UK and US publication, Lauren Elkin will be reading from No. 91/92, joined by London-based French novelist Lucie Paye for a conversation in French, followed by a Q&A in English.
Attend in two ways:
Onsite: £7, conc. £5
Online: free livestream on Facebook and YouTube
More information can be found here.
This panel brings together the book’s English and Catalan translators, Ros Schwartz & Dolors Udina with award-winning novelist Preti Taneja.
Find out more about the event and how to register for free on Eventbrite.
Les Fugitives are popping up in the delightful Curled Leaf café, West Hampstead! Join us on Saturday the 10th for a coffee, a chat with the (very friendly!) publisher and a chance to browse through all our beautiful books.
On 17 May 2021 Julia Kerninon will be speaking at the Beyond Words Festival with Rebecca Watson, Lauren Elkin, and Olivia Ross to discuss how young women authors can bring a different voice to the literary world.
Julia Kerninon’s A Respectable Occupation was published in the English in August 2020 and was featured as one of Tatler’s Best Books of Summer 2020.
Tickets for the in-person event can be purchased here and the event will also be live streamed on Facebook and YouTube.
Use the link and password below to watch Ananda Devi, Leila Aboulela, and Kapka Kassabova in conversation, discussing identity, borders, and migration. The event took place online at the end of September.
More detail about the event can be viewed on the EUNIC London website.
http://bit.ly/EuropeanWritersReplay
Password: EuropeanWriters1
London Reads the World is headed (virtually) to Tunisia with Colette Fellous’s This Tilting World. The wonderful Sophie Lewis, who translated the novel in to the English, will join the book club Monday 10 August from 7pm BST to discuss Fellous’s heartbreaking homage to her birthplace. It will be hosted on Zoom and for details on how to join send a DM to @LdnReadsWorld..
On 18 May 2020 Nathalie Léger was online with Jonathan Gibbs and Natasha Lehrer for the Beyond Words French Literature Festival.
Courtesy of the French Institut, a wonderful triptych of videos treats us to a subtitled interview with author Nathalie Léger, a presentation by novelist and reviewer Jonathan Gibbs, and a reading from The White Dress (excerpts in English and French) from translator Natasha Lehrer.
All videos can be watched and re-watched here: http://beyondwordslitfest.co.uk/the-white-dress/
You can even view the documentary which inspired The White Dress; The Bride follows the journey of Italian performance artist Pippa Bacca.: http://beyondwordslitfest.co.uk/the-bride/
Sylvie Weil will be at Jewish Book Week on 1 March. Chaired by Boyd Tonkin, Sylvie Weil will be on the panel with Peter Filkins and Anna Blasiak discussing how translation allows literature to reach a wider audience.
Copies of Selfies will be available in the festival bookshop on the day.
Tickets are £9.50 and more information about the event can be viewed here.
A full list of festival events can be viewed here.
Translating Across Worlds: Translation, creativity, and intercultural politics in contemporary francophone women’s writing.
Ananda Devi, Colette Fellous, and Sophie Lewis will be at Durham University in February for a one-day event on translation, creativity, and politics. The day will feature a creative writing workshop, translation workshop, and panel discussion exploring the roles played by translation and creative writing in making sense of the world around us in view of colonial legacies, nationalist movements, and rising extremism, where women are often the primary victims but also the most powerful voices.
Both Fellous (This Tilting World) and Devi (The Living Days) will be reflecting on their respective works, recently published by Les Fugitives, dialing in to urgent contemporary debates on migration, protest, and anti-racism.
The event is open to researchers, postgraduate and undergraduate students, and creative writing and translation professionals.
13.30-15.00 Creative Writing Workshop with Ananda Devi
15.00-15.30 Coffee
15.30- 17.00 Translation Workshop with Colette Fellous and Sophie Lewis
Ritson Hall, Alington House, 4 North Bailey, Durham, DH1 3ET
17.30 Vin d'honneur
18.15 Panel discussion
Lindisfarne Centre, St Aidan's College, Windmill Hill, Durham, DH1 3LJ
Attendance is free but space is limited. Please email enquiries to Dr Amaleena Damlé: amaleena.damle@durham.ac.uk to register interest for one or more of the sessions.
An event to celebrate Nathalie Léger's second book in English Exposition, the evening will comprise of a reading in English from translator Amanda DeMarco, a reading in French from publisher and editor Cécile Menon, and a conversation between Amanda DeMarco and writer Jonathan Gibbs, concluding with a Q&A session.
The event is free and requires no booking.
More info here.
Following the publication of The Living Days, Ananda Devi will be joining Nisha Ramayya at Pages Cheshire Street in January. The conversation will explore how their work resonates with each other and their cultural, ethnic, and linguistics identities.
Tickets are £5 each with free tickets available for students and the over 70s. More details can be found on the Pages Cheshire Street website or interest can be shown through the Facebook event. .
Publishing in Translation is a knowledge sharing event organised by Inpress, the British Centre for Literary Translation, National Centre for Writing and UEA Publishing Project. The day will include discussion panels with press founders, talks with poets and translators, and a networking lunch, an ideal opportunity for all professionals working in or studying the publishing industry!
Les Fugitives founder, Cécile Menon, will be on the ‘Confessions of a literary translation publisher’ panel from 11:45 - 12:30, discussing challenges, changes, and the future of publishing in translation.
Tickets and the full list of event times can be found here.
Celebrating the best in small publishing, Les Fugitives will be at the annual Small Publishers’ Fair in November.
Over 60 publishers from both the UK and abroad will be there staging readings, talks, and exhibitions, as well as hosting tables where there will be lots of original works to purchase.
Entrance is free and more information will be released closer to the start of the event. Last year’s event programme can be viewed here.
The Small Publishers’ Fair organisers will be posting updates from their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on the lead up to the fair.
Also in October Les Fugitives will be taking part in the London Indie Press Book fair hosted by Dostoyevsky Wannabe and the Contemporary Small Press project. Some fabulous indie presses have been confirmed and the current list of can be found on the eventbrite page.
Come down and join us for an afternoon of music and book browsing!
Entrance to the fair is free but it would be helpful if interest can be shown by selecting the event on the Facebook page or by registering for the fair on eventbrite.
In October Les Fugitives will be hosting a book stall as part of the New Suns feminist literary festival at the Barbican. Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay, The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, the fair is set to host an array of events including workshops, talks, and screenings all exploring contemporary feminism and technology.
The festival will run from 10:30am to 5:30pm giving you a full day to enjoy a variety of free and ticketed events and browse book stalls by some of the UK’s best in feminist, indie publishing.
Les Fugitives’s eighth publication, This Tilting World, will be newly published at the time of New Suns so be sure to come down for a chance to grab some copies hot off the press!
On September 18th, Colette Fellous will be in London, joined by her translator Sophie Lewis, and Michèle Roberts, to celebrate Fellous’s first book to be published in English. Come meet the author and listen to her reading an excerpt of the book in French; join in the Q&A, followed by a glass of wine as Daunt Books hosts us for the launch of This Tilting World. An ode to her native country, Tunisia, Fellous’s story is set in the devastating aftermath of the 2015 massacre at Sousse.
‘Colette Fellous’ beautiful book, humming and dancing with sensual intelligence, newly vivid in Sophie Lewis’s deft, delicate, agile version, takes change and translation as its very themes.’– Michèle Roberts
Tickets and more details here.
On 7 & 8 September Les Fugitives will be headed to Brussels for the WIELS Art Book Fair. The fair will bring together indie art publishers from all over the world for a weekend of readings, performances, book signings and more!
Entrance is free and open to the public.
More information on the event and attending publishers can be found here.
Mireille Gansel will be at Edinburgh Book Festival in August with Marek Kohn discussing the act of language learning and how our brains responds to the task.
More info on location, tickets and the rest of the festival can be viewed here.
Acclaimed French translators Vineet Lal and Ros Schwartz present their own interpretations of The Boy by Marcus Malte. Hosted by Daniel Hahn, three writers prove that each translation is its own creative work.
More info on location, tickets and the rest of the festival can be viewed here.
Join us the third weekend in June as The Pelican and Tangerine Press welcome Les Fugitives for The Uncorrected Independent Publisher’s Fair as part of the Camberwell Arts Festival.
The 4th installment of the fair brings together 9 of the UK’s most exciting independent presses. Prints, paperbacks and limited editions available for purchase at special event rates with readings from midday on Sunday 23rd.
More information on the event can be viewed here. A full list of Arts Festival events can be viewed here.
Selfies book launch: Monday 17th June.
Life imitates art! Inspired by self-portraits of women artists and characterised by Sylvie Weil’s self-deprecating humour, the episodes in this collection of literary selfies take us from Tokyo to Tel Aviv, from a 1950s Parisian school playground to Sunday lunches in leafy Vermont. There is laughter but also sorrow, love, loss and betrayal.
‘A beguiling series of vignettes, by turns wry, amusing and disturbing, inspired by self-portraits by women artists and reflecting on the images they provoke. An illuminating survey of the author’s various identities, in a fractured world, as mother, lover and writer.’ – Michèle Roberts
On June 17th, Sylvie Weil and her translator Ros Schwartz will be in conversation with Amanda Hopkinson, for an uncensored evening spilling stories, followed by a glass of wine (to be enjoyed unspilled).
Join us to celebrate the publication of this scintillating, multifaceted memoir, which can be purchased and signed by the author on the day.
Tickets can be purchased here.
You can pre-order Selfies here
On the 17th, 18th and 19th of May we'll be in the Turbine Hall, at Tate Modern for Offprint London.
Entry is free – do come and say hello to us, and the wonderful Hotel who we’ll be sharing a table with!
And... there'll be the exclusive opportunity to pick up a copy of Sylvie Weil's Selfies tr. Ros Schwartz, one month ahead of official publication (25 June)!
Conversation & Film Screening: Dramas from Divided Europe
German playwright Marius von Mayenburg and French author Noémi Lefebvre will be in conversation with British director Amy Hodge discussing their latest collaboration on The European Project. Looking at how economics and politics affect the individual, this collaboration follows up on 2017’s Brexit Shorts series.
7.30pm: screening of the Brexit Shorts; 8pm talk
More details and tickets can be found here
On 4 October, Les Fugitives will be at Heong Gallery in Cambridge to hold an event for Now, Now Louison for the last days of the collective exhibition DO I HAVE TO DRAW YOU A PICTURE, featuring drawings by Louise Bourgeois among others. Details of this event shall be confirmed in the newsletter later this month.
Join us at Tate Modern on 3rd October, to hear Michèle Roberts in conversation with Jean Frémon and translator Cole Swensen, discuss the art of the portrait in literature, the art of translation and, of course, the life and work of artist Louise Bourgeois.
More information and tickets can be found on the Tate Modern website.
Roundtable with Mith Mireille Gansel, Ros Schwartz, Sarah Ardizzone & Faïza Guène
On 13th June, Mireille Gansel will be in London for Language Acts and Worldmaking, taking part to a roundtable with Ros Schwartz, their fellow award-winning French translator Sarah Ardizzone, and French author and director Faïza Guène.
Watch and listen here.
Video still from Language Acts and Worldmaking, 2018
International Literature Festival: Mirelle Gansel & Ros Schwartz in Conversation with Michael Cronin
On Wednesday 23rd, Mireille Gansel, her translator Roz Schwartz and author Michael Cronin will be discussing Gansel’s English PEN Award winning essay-memoir Translation as Transhumance at Trinity College Dublin. A conversation on the art and act of translation, this event is part of the stellar line-up of this year’s International Literature Festival.
Beyond Words Festival: Noémi Lefebvre in Conversation with Eimear McBride
On Thursday 17th Noémi Lefebvre will be in conversation with Eimear McBride, as well as French and Canadian authors Pierre Senges and Hélène Frédérick. Sophie Lewis, translator of Lefebvre’s virtuosic Blue Self-Portrait, will be chairing the talk in part of a packed program at the Institut français’ second ever Beyond Words festival.
Image from Beyond Words Lit Fest, 2018
On Wednesday 16th we are pleased to be joining Sarah Cleave of Comma Press; writer and publisher John Mitchinson; and the TLS’s commissioning editor Thea Lenarduzzi, at BookMachine London, to discuss the present-day boom in independent publishing, and its future prospects.
Image from BookMachine, 2018
Translation as Transhumance in Conversation with Preti Taneja & Ros Schwartz
A conversation between novelist, activist and Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Warwick Preti Taneja and award-winning translator from the French Ros Schwartz.
Mireille Gansel’s lyrical memoir Translation as Transhumance, translated by Schwartz, is an exploration of ‘the role of literature in making for a more interconnected and humane world’ (Eva Hoffman).
The event will be of interest to anyone working in language, translation, literature or history, and will touch on memory, exile, ethics, poetry, writing as activism, and the power of translation to connect us all.
A PEN panel discussion on 'humanist translation', poetry and memory.
Renowned poets and translators discuss the estrangement every translator experiences moving between languages, and how translation can become an exercise of empathy between those in exile.
Copies of the award-winning Translation as Transhumance will be available for sale and signing after the discussion. Cambridge PEN will also be taking the speakers out for a meal after the event and anyone welcome to come along to carry on chatting!
Photograph by Jean-Yves Masson
Jewish Book Week: Sophie Herxheimer, Ros Schwartz & Cécile Menon in Conversation with Bidisha
Poet Sophie Herxheimer, translator Ros Schwartz and Les Fugitives founder Cécile Menon joined Bidisha at Jewish Book Week 2018 to discuss the relationship between writer, translator and reader.
The discussion, Between the Lines, can be viewed here.
Image from Kings Place, 2018
Author Mireille Gansel and translator Ros Schwartz, in conversation with Amanda Hopkinson, co-founder of English PEN’s Writers in Translation programme
Join us here for a short, celebratory conversation and reading of excerpts of Translation as Transhumance in French and in English, followed by drinks and mingling.
Winner of an English PEN Award, the book presents a compassionate meditation on the art of translation that also serves as a moving account of wartime danger, hospitality, and human kinship.
Photograph by Christopher Andreou (@DeLaBagel)
On Thursday 15th June 2017 Les Fugitives will be celebrating the publication of Noémi Lefebvre's debut novel Blue Self-Portrait at the Review bookshop, London, where the author will be talking about her work with critic Jonathan Gibbs (@Tiny_Camels).
A smart, angst-ridden and comical exploration of 20th-century false notes, misprisions and earworms, this will be our third title. The event and publication are generously supported by the Institut français du Royaume-Uni.
Photograph by Catherine Hélie
Beyond Words Festival: Alexis Jenni, Emmanuelle Pagano, Mathias Malzieu & Ananda Devi in Conversation
On Sunday afternoon 14th May, Ananda Devi will take part to 'French Passions', a collective event featuring Emmanuelle Pagano, best-selling author Mathias Malzieu and debut novel Goncourt winner Alexis Jenni, as part of the Beyond Words Festival, at Dulwich Books, London.
Image from Beyond Words Lit Fest, 2017
