On the 24th of June 2024, tune into ‘A Good Read’ on BBC Radio 4 or BBC Sounds for a discussion of Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal (trans. Jessica Moore). Presenter Harriet Gilbert and two guests will be sharing their thoughts on the book. We will post links to the episode as soon as they become available.
2024 French-American Foundation Translation Prize Finalists: Down with the Poor! and Eastbound
We are thrilled to share that both Down with the Poor! by Shumona Sinha (trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan) and Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal (trans. Jessica Moore) are two of the five finalists for the Fiction category of the French-American Translation Prize 2024.
Read MoreMay the Tigris Grieve for You by Emilienne Malfatto longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize
May the Tigris Grieve for You by Emilienne Malfatto, translated by Lorna Scott Fox, has been longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2024. Here’s what the judges had to say: ‘A very powerful little book. It stages the ambiguities, hesitations, fears, and all the grey stuff that makes us human. Poetic, yet powerful in political statement.’
The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses celebrates small, independent presses who support creatively challenging work. To view the entire longlist, see the Republic of Consciousness Substack. The shortlist will be announced in March.
Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal Best Book of 2023
Eastbound, translated by Jessica Moore, was listed on 28 November in the New York Times’ Best Ten Books of 2023 and in the New Yorker’s Best Books of the Year. Maylis de Kerangal’s novella, originally published in France in 2012, was also listed in the Financial Times and the New Statesman’s Best Books of 2022, when it was first published in the UK by Les Fugitives. Eastbound is published in North America by our US partner Archipelago Books, New York.
Ananda Devi wins the Neustadt International Prize for Literature 2024
Les Fugitives are delighted to announce that Ananda Devi has won the 2024 Neustadt International Prize for Literature for the entirety of her work. A prize so prestigious it is often referred to as the ‘American Nobel’, the Neustadt International Prize is sponsored by the University of Oklahoma. Read the entire breakdown in their literary magazine, World Literature Today.
Read MoreAhead of the publication of Portrait Tales by Jean Frémon, here's what reviewers said about his earlier books published by Les Fugitives...
Portrait Tales by Jean Frémon is out soon! Here's a reminder of what to expect...
Praise for Nativity:
REVIEW: Esther Kinsky, GROVE and Jean Frémon, NATIVITY, Helen Vassalo, Translating Women
Drawn into Being: the drawings of Louise Bourgeois and Jean Frémon’s Nativity, Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou, Lucy Writers
Praise for Now, Now, Louison:
Louise Bourgeois as I Knew Her, Granta
‘Something like a portrait of Louise Bourgeois’, Harry Thorne, Frieze online
Now, Now, Louison, Robert Greer, London Magazine
Les Fugitives at Offprint 2023
From the 12th to the 14th of May, Les Fugitives will be at Offprint London 2023 at the Tate Modern. Come along and discover a selection of independent experimental and socially-engaged publishers in the fields of arts, architecture, design, humanities, and visual culture. We will be bringing pre-publication copies of Jean Frémon’s Portrait Tales!
For more event information, please see the event page on the Tate website.
Best Books of 2022 x 2
EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal (published Sept. 2022) was listed in the Financial Times’ best books of the year (fiction in translation):
“Though first published in France 10 years ago, there is a contemporary resonance to this slender tale of a young Russian conscript, Aliocha, trying to escape the army on the Trans-Siberian railway and encountering Hélène, a fellow fugitives in flight from her own past.”
Both DOWN WITH THE POOR! by Shumona Sinha (published Aug. 2022) and EASTBOUND featured among Preti Taneja’s three best books of 2022 in The New Statesman:
“I loved two books from small press Les Fugitives. Maylis de Kerangal’s Eastbound (translated by Jessica Moore) propels us through a fevered journey on the Trans-Siberian Express. Shumona Sinha’s brutal Down with the Poor! (translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan) breaks open a colonised brown mind negotiating its place between the black and Asian refugees and white do-gooders of contemporary France.’
Preti Taneja is the winner of the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize for second book Aftermath, and of the Desmond Elliott Prize, as well as the Eastern Eye Award for Literature for her debut novel We That Are Young.
THE CHILD WHO by Jeanne Benameur | Published today 🍃
Today sees the publication of a poetic novel with mystery at its heart, first published in France in 2017, and frozen in time since Cécile picked it up on the spur of the moment, leaving the last London Book Fair to take place pre-pandemic. So we are particularly happy that our first book in translation from the French for almost a year should be this gentle but striking UK debut, published in the US by the wonderful Calypso Editions.
Read MoreIntroducing the quick brown fox
Introducing the quick brown fox, Les Fugitives’ new literary collection presenting English-language originals including works of fiction, narrative non-fiction and autofiction by contemporary writers not in translation.
Read MoreLittle Dancer Aged Fourteen longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation
Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Camille Laurens, translated from the French by Willard Wood is the first of our titles to be longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation!
For more information about the prize and longlisted titles see here.
Judge Boyd Tonkin said of the 2021 longlist: ‘In every case, the artistry of the translator keeps pace with the invention of the author. Each book created its own world in its own voice. The judges warmly recommend them all.’
Out today! Lauren Elkin's No.91/92: notes on a Parisian commute 🚌
'I loved this book. I loved its honesty, its impatience, its tenderness, its testiness, its humour. I love all the different ways of noticing it lays bare. Indeed Elkin captures all the thoughts, impressions, digressions, and speculations that go on in our minds while we surrender to being just another inert body on a bus. Thrilling and absorbing, these are notes to treasure and return to.' — Claire-Louise Bennett
No.91/92: notes on a Parisian commuteby Lauren Elkin isbn 978-1-8380141-8-6 | 140 pages, paperback | £8.99LAUREN ELKIN's No. 91/92 🚌 Launch events now live!
You wait for an event, then two pull up at at the same time!
Tickets now live for online and in-person launches of No.91/92: notes on a Parisian commute by Lauren Elkin
The Fool and Other Moral Tales by Anne Serre | Published today 🎭
The Fool and Other Moral Tales
by Anne Serre
translated from the French by Mark Hutchinson
published today in the UK
ISBN 978-1-8380141-5-5 | 228 pages paperback |£10.99 RRP
The (W)Rite of Spring
‘… incredible, so poetic and visceral. Devi is a powerful and uncompromising writer but the moments of tenderness and humanity throughout made the lack of it all the more stark. I'm so glad it's been translated, we need more books like this on shelves!’ — Deirdre Sullivan, author of Tangleweed and Brine
The Young Adult edition (for readers 16+) of Eve Out of Her Ruins, featuring a preface by Ananda Devi, is out today.
Young Adult edition | £7.99 | isbn 978183801448
Audiobook | £9.99 | isbn 9781838490416
The audiobook - our first! - produced by Cast Iron Books, is brilliantly read by young actors Saffron Coomber (Eve), Mohammad Mansaray (Saad), Anant Varman (Clélio), and Vaani K Sharma (Savita), and is available here. See also this video clip by Saffron Coomber.
Both editions were made possible thanks to Arts Council England Emergency Funding received last year. On 20 May, Ananda Devi will be taking part in a creative writing and translation workshop exploring the notions of place and identity across languages, with sixth form students at Farnborough College. This workshop is designed and delivered in collaboration with Shadow Heroes, and sponsored by the Institut Français du Royaume-Uni.
POW⚡Noémi Lefebvre's blistering new novel published today
Dear readers, today marks the much-anticipated release of Poetics of Work! There is cause for celebration, with the equally much-anticipated reopening of bookshops across the country next week. Why the bananas? You may ask. Needless to say, the answer is in the book.
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Poisson d'avril
The Fool and Other Moral Tales by Anne Serre,
translated by Mark Hutchinson
Published 1st June
Pre-orders £12.00 (up from £10.00 RRP) for one month only!
Indie publishing in a pandemic is no joke. That's why, this April, we're running a back-to-front sale, and asking you, our friends and readers to become benefactors of the book.
The names of readers who pre-order this book will be listed in the end pages as our Fugitive Benefactors. April pre-orders will also receive their copy of The Fool hot off the press. Your support will ensure we go to print in good time to promote this new collection with all its due bells and whistles.
Read MoreThis Tilting World by Colette Fellous, translated by Sophie Lewis, shortlisted for NSW Premier's Translation Prize
As part of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Les Fugitives favourite This Titling World by Colette Fellous, translated by Sophie Lewis, has this week been shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Translation Prize.
The novel ‘echoes Proust in its multitude of colourful portraits of people and place (…) echoes Roland Barthes’ use of fragmentary texts and images to offer readers a prismatic memoir of both political and cultural significance’ whilst Lewis’s translation is ‘ clear, fluent and poetic’.
View the NSW Premier’s introduction of the book here, view other the other translation nominees here, and good luck to all involved!
Read MoreAn interview with translator Kazim Ali
Kazim Ali’s most recent work to be published in India is the English translation of Ananda Devi’s Quand la nuit consent à me parler, -When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me (Harper Perennial, 2021). Ali was interviewed by Chintan Girish Modi for Firstpost, you can read the full interview here.
Read MoreAn interview with Les Fugitives Founder Cécile Lee for Burley Fisher Books
‘The writer’s universe gains in depth and clarity with every book. So does the editorial direction of this publisher.’
The lucky ones who subscribed to Burley Fisher Books’ Indie Fiction picks will soon be receiving their copies of Noémi Lefebvre’s amazing (if we do say so ourselves) Poetics of Work a few months ahead of official publication.
In celebration of this Les Fugitives maestro Cécile was interviewed for the Burley Fisher Books blog. Talking about publishing, translation, and everyone’s favourite literary discussion topic ~genre~ the full interview can be read on their website here.
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