French Archives

Past Perfect

by Nat Segnit,

Politicizing history at France’s favorite amusement park

Pain Quotidien

From Le journal d’un prisonnier, a memoir by the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy recounting the twenty days he spent incarcerated last year on corruption charges, which was published in…

Birthing Channel

by Laura Vazquez,

From The Endless Week, which was published last month by Dorothy. Translated from the French by Alex Niemi. Every week, the grandmother watched a show in which women gave birth.…

Film Bête Noire

by Marguerite Duras,

From My Cinema, which was published by Another Gaze Editions in January. Translated from the French by Daniella Shreir. No longer any use in the make-believe of socialist hope. In…

Our Pierre

by Cormac James,

From Trondheim, which was published last month by Bellevue Literary Press. On the day their son was going to die, Lil had given herself the task of carrying forty-plus sacks…

Love Hurts

by Édouard Louis,

From a fictional dialogue with his father in his novel Change, which will be published this month by Harvill Secker. Translated from the French by John Lambert. Before meeting Elena…

Triangulation

by Thomas Chatterton Williams,

As of this writing, the United States, which has 4.2 percent of the world’s population, accounts for nearly 30 percent of total COVID-19 mortalities. Among Americans, a common response to…

Trash, Rock, Destroy

by Lauren Elkin,

Is Virginie Despentes the French writer America needs?

Grim Sleeper

by Michel Leiris,

By Michel Leiris (1901–90), from Nights as Day, Days as Night, a chronicle of the author’s dreams between 1923 and 1961. The book was published last month by Spurl Editions.…

Fighting Dirty

by Anne Garréta, Emma Ramadan,

By Anne Garréta, from Not One Day, which was published this month by Deep Vellum. Garréta is a French novelist and a member of the Oulipo. Not One Day chronicles…

The Notes of Patrick Modiano

by Peter De Jonge,

A young writer finds his voice on the radio

French

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