vie_francaise_dubois
2009 Nominated

Vie Francaise

artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

Meet Paul Blick: born in France (but not Paris); son of a car dealer; provincial sociology student-cum-theoretical revolutionary; briefly employed (by his father-in-law); married and soon to discover adultery and other satisfactions of a desperate househusband as consort of a high-flying wife who conquers the world as CEO of a Jacuzzi-manufacturing company.

This not-so-extraordinary Frenchman is delivered to the not-so-extraordinary awareness of having arrived in middle age more a product of his times, his country, and blind chance than a creature of his own free will.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Jean-Paul
Dubois

Jean-Paul Dubois (b. 1950) is a French journalist and author. He is the author of several novels and travel pieces, and reports for Le Nouvel Observateur. His novel, Une vie française, published in French in 2004 and in English in 2007, is a saga of the French baby boom generation, from the idealism of the 1960s to the consumerism of the 1990s. The French version of the novel won the Prix Femina. He won the Prix Goncourt in 2019 for Tous les hommes n’habitent pas le monde de la même façon (“All Men Do Not Inhabit This World in the Same Way”), a novel told from the perspective of a prisoner looking back on life.

Jean-Paul Dubois (b. 1950) is a French journalist and author. He is the author of several novels and travel pieces, and reports for Le Nouvel Observateur. His novel, Une vie française, published in French in 2004 and in English in 2007, is a saga of the French baby boom generation, from the idealism of the 1960s to the consumerism of the 1990s. The French version of the novel won the Prix Femina. He won the Prix Goncourt in 2019 for Tous les hommes n’habitent pas le monde de la même façon (“All Men Do Not Inhabit This World in the Same Way”), a novel told from the perspective of a prisoner looking back on life.

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Linda
Coverdale

Linda Coverdale is a literary translator from French. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has a Ph.D in French Literature. She has translated into English more than 60 works by such authors as Roland Barthes, Emmanuel Carrère, Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé, Marie Darrieussecq, Jean Echenoz, Annie Ernaux, Sébastien Japrisot, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Philippe Labro, Yann Queffélec, Jorge Semprún, Lyonel Trouillot, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Jean Hartzfeld, Sylvain Tesson and Marguerite Duras.

Linda Coverdale is a literary translator from French. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has a Ph.D in French Literature. She has translated into English more than 60 works by such authors as Roland Barthes, Emmanuel Carrère, Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé, Marie Darrieussecq, Jean Echenoz, Annie Ernaux, Sébastien Japrisot, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Philippe Labro, Yann Queffélec, Jorge Semprún, Lyonel Trouillot, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Jean Hartzfeld, Sylvain Tesson and Marguerite Duras.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

We are subjugated by the main character Paul Blick, who fills all the book, in spite of the many other characters. A chilly novel, bright, light even in seriousness.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
France
Original Language
French
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Translator
Linda Coverdale

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