Festival of New French Writing

The French and Francophone authors coming to New York to take part in the Festival of New French Writing are among the best known writing in the French language today. They form no school, they subscribe to no single esthetic but they all share a deep commitment to literature itself and a profound engagement with the world in which they live.

Their concerns are not alien to the American writers who have agreed to enter into conversations with their French counterparts. They, too, come from multiple cultural and intellectual traditions and, like their transatlantic colleagues, they view the world with anxiety.

The conversations between French and American authors, assisted by eminent New York-based American and French critics and journalists aim to present a view of the state of French writing today as well as contrasts with fiction and non-fiction writing in the United States, and an outlook on the future of literature.

		paul berman Author and journalist Paul Berman writes on politics and literature. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New Republic (where he is a contributing editor), the New Yorker, Slate, and The New York Times Book Review. His books include A Tale of Two Utopias and Terror and Liberalism, a New York Times best-seller in 2004. His most recent work, published in 2007, is Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and Its Aftermath. Berman follows trends in politics and social movements around the world, and he has notably reported on Nicaragua’s civil wars, Mexico’s elections, and the Czech Republic’s Velvet Revolution. His writings have been translated into fifteen languages. Berman received a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Columbia University and has been awarded a MacArthur, a Guggenheim, the Bosch Berlin Prize, a fellowship at the New York Public Library’s Center for Writers & Scholars, and other honors. Currently he is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, a professor of journalism and distinguished writer in residence at New York University, and a member of the editorial board of Dissent. Selected works Debating P.C.: The Controversy Over Political Correctness on College Campuses, Dell, 1995 A Tale of Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968, W. W. Norton & Co., 1997 Terror and Liberalism, W. W. Norton & Co., 2004 Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems, Library of America, 2006 Power and the Idealists: Or, the Passion of Joschka Fischer and Its Aftermath, W. W. Norton & Co., 2007 back to top
		stefan merrill block Stefan Merrill Block was born in 1982 and grew up in Plano, Texas. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2004 and now lives in Brooklyn. His first novel, The Story of Forgetting, received major critical acclaim when it was published in 2008, was shortlisted for the 2008 Mercantile Library's John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize and was chosen as "Best First Novel" in the 2008 Rome International Festival of Literature. Block weaves several stories around genetically determined early-onset Alzheimer's that wreaks havoc in a family, treating this delicate subject with a sensitivity and maturity surprising given his youth. Block brings both humor and tenderness to his novel which deals with forgetting as not necessarily insidious. Selected works The Story of Forgetting, Random House, 2008 back to top
		mark danner Mark Danner is a writer, journalist and professor who specializes in foreign affairs and international conflict. He has covered Central America, Haiti, Balkans and Iraq, and has written extensively about the development of American foreign policy during the late Cold War and afterward, and about violations of human rights during that time. His books include The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War's Buried History (2006), Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror (2004), and The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War (1994). Danner was a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker and is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. Among numerous honors, Danner has received a National Magazine Award, three Overseas Press Awards, an Emmy, and the Carey McWilliams Award from the American Political Science Association. He has been named a MacArthur Fellow and in 2008 was named the Marian and Andrew Heiskell Visiting Critic at the American Academy in Rome. He is also Professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs, Politics, and Humanities at Bard College. Mark Danner divides his time between San Francisco and New York. Selected works The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War, Vintage 1994 Torture and Truth America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror, New York Review Books, 2004 The Road to Illegitimacy: One Reporter's Travels Through the 2000 Florida Vote Re-Count, Melville House Publishing, 2004 The Secret Way To War: The Downing Street Memo the Iraq War's Buried History, New York Review Books, 2006 back to top
		e.l. doctorow Born in New York, Edgar Lawrence Doctorow had begun his graduate studies in English Drama at Columbia University when he was drafted in 1954 and served two years in the army. Upon returning to New York he worked as editor for the New American Library, and as editor- in -chief of The Dial Press. He published The Book of Daniel in 1971 to critical acclaim, and followed with Ragtime in 1975, which has since been named one of the hundred best novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library Editorial Board. His subsequent works include Loon Lake, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate, The Waterworks, City of God, and The March. He has published two short-story collections, Lives of the Poets and Sweet Land Stories, and three collections of essays, Jack London, Hemingway and the Constitution, Reporting the Universe, and Creationists. E.L. Doctorow is the Loretta and Lewis Glucksman Professor of English and American Letters at New York University. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Book Award, three National Book Critics Circle Awards, two PEN/Faulkner Awards, the Commonwealth Award, the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the presidentially conferred (by President Clinton) National Humanities Medal. Selected works The Book of Daniel, Random House, 1971 Ragtime, Random House, 1975 Loon Lake, Random House,1980 Lives of the Poets, Random House, 1984 World's Fair, Random House, 1985 Billy Bathgate, Random House, 1989 Jack London, Hemingway and the Constitution, Random House, 1993 The Waterworks, Random House, 1994 City of God, Random House, 2000 Reporting the Universe, Harvard University Press, 2004 The March, Random House, 2005 Creationists, Random House, 2006 back to top
		adam gopnik Adam Gopnik was born in Philadelphia, grew up in Montreal where he studied at McGill University. A writer, essayist, and cultural commentator, Gopnik has been writing for The New Yorker since 1986, contributing non-fiction, fiction, memoir, and criticism. His book Paris to the Moon, 2000, was a New York Times best-seller. He published an adventure story for children, The King in the Window and Through a Children’s Gate: A Home in New York . Gopnik also edited the book Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology. His upcoming Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life will be published in early 2009. He has twice won the National Magazine Award for Essays, as well as the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. Selected works Paris to the Moon, Random House, 2000 Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology, Library of America, 2004 The King in the Window, Hyperion, 2005 Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York, Vintage, 2007 Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, Knopf, 2009 back to top
		philip gourevitch Gourevitch has written on a number of subjects, from ethnic conflicts, to politics, to music. His first book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, (1998), about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, earned Gourevitch an exceptional number of awards and honors: the National Book Critics Circle Award, the George Polk Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the Overseas Press Club Cornelius Ryan Award, the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Award, and in England, The Guardian First Book Award. He collaborated with the filmmaker Errol Morris for his most recent book, Standard Operating Procedure, an account of Abu Ghraib prison under the American occupation. Gourevitch was named editor of The Paris Review in 2005. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker and has published articles in numerous magazines, including Granta, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, and The New York Review of Books. His books have been translated into ten languages. Philip Gourevitch graduated from Cornell University and received a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction from Columbia University. He lives in Brooklyn. Selected works We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, Picador, 1999 A Cold Case, Picador, 2002 Standard Operating Procedure, Penguin, 2008 back to top
		francine du plessix gray Born in Poland where her father, a French diplomat, was the Commercial Attaché, Francine du Plessix Gray spent her early childhood in France and moved to the United States with her Russian born mother following her father's death during the war. After college years at Bryn Mawr and Barnard she married the painter Cleve Gray and until his death in 2004, they lived together in Connecticut. Francine du Plessix Gray has written many works of fiction, memoirs, biographies, and other forms of non-fiction and has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1968. She has taught as Visiting Professor at a number of major universities and has been awarded honorary doctorates at many others. For her 2006 Them: A Memoir of Parents, she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. Selected works Divine Disobedience: Profiles in Catholic Radicalism, Knopf, 1970 Lovers and Tyrants, Simon and Schuster, 1976 World Without End, Simon and Schuster. 1981 Rage and Fire: A Life of Louise Colet, Simon and Schuster, 1994 At Home with the Marquis de Sade: A Life, Simon and Schuster, 1998 Simone Weil, Viking Press 2001 Them: A Memoir of Parents, Penguin Press, 2005 Madame de Staël. Atlas & Co., 2008 back to top
		siri hustvedt Minnesota born, Columbia educated (Ph.D. in English), Siri Hustvedt is best known as a novelist, but she has also produced a book of poetry Reading to You (1982), three collections of essays Yonder, Mysteries of the Rectangle: Essays on Painting, and A Plea for Eros. She has also published short stories and essays in (among others) The Art of the Essay, The Best American Short Stories, The Paris Review, Yale Review, and Modern Painters. Her most recent novel, The Sorrows of an American, published last year, shares with her earlier ones, The Blindfold, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, and What I Loved a mysterious sense of the protagonists’ very private universe which endows a Hustvedt novel with an immediately recognizable sense of the uncanny. Siri Hustvedt lives in Brooklyn. Selected works Reading to You, Open Book, 1982 The Blindfold, Poseidon Press, 1992 The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, Henry Holt and Co., 1996 What I Loved, Henry Holt and Co., 2003 Mysteries of the Rectangle, Princeton Architectural Press, 2005 A Plea for Eros, Picador, 2006 The Sorrows of an American, Henry Holt and Co., 2008 back to top
		francine prose Francine Prose graduated from Radcliffe College in 1968, and received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1991. She has sat on the board of judges for the PEN/Newman’s Own Award. Prose is the author of Blue Angel, a satire about sexual harassment on college campuses that was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her other novels include Hunters and Gatherers, Bigfoot Dreams, Primitive People, A Changed Man, and her latest, Goldengrove. Her second novel, Household Saints was made into a film and the next, The Glorious Ones, was adapted into a musical which ran at Lincoln Center in 2007. She has also written two story collections and a collection of novellas, Guided Tours of Hell. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The Best American Short Stories, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Observer, and numerous other publications. Francine Prose is a Visiting Professor at Bard College and has also taught at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the University of Arizona, the University of Utah, and the Bread Loaf and Sewanee writers’ conferences. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1991. Francine Prose is the current president of PEN American Center. Selected works The Glorious Ones, Harper Perennial, 1974 Household Saints, St. Martin’s Press, 1981 Bigfoot Dreams, Pantheon, 1986 Primitive People, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1992 Hunters and Gatherers, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1995 Blue Angel, Harper Perennial, 2001 A Changed Man, HarperCollins, 2005 Goldengrove, HarperCollins, 2008 back to top
		chris ware While still a sophomore at the University of Texas, Ware attracted the attention of Art Spiegelman, who invited Ware to contribute to his influential anthology magazine, RAW. This led to national acclaim and an eventual relationship with Fantagraphics Books where his Acme Novelty Library series defied comics publishing conventions with every issue. Ware is the recipient of many awards including the 1999 National Cartoonists Society Award for Best Comic Book for Acme Novelty Library. In 2002 Ware became the first comics artist to be invited to exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In May 2006 he exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Ware was among the artists honored in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at the Jewish Museum in 2006. The graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth won the 2001 Guardian First Book Award, the first time a graphic novel has won a major United Kingdom book award. It also won the prize for best album at the 2003 Angoulême International Comics Festival in France. In 2006, Ware received a USA Hoi Fellow grant from United States Artists. Born In Nebraska, Chris Ware now lives in Illinois. Selected works Acme Novelty Library, Fantagraphics Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, Pantheon, 1999 back to top
		edmund white Edmund White, a novelist, literary critic, and prominent commentator on gay life, was born in Ohio, grew up in Chicago and studied Chinese at the University of Michigan. He later worked in New York as a journalist and lived in France from 1983 to 1990. He is the author of nearly 20 works, including the recent autobiography, My Lives. His fiction includes the autobiographical trilogy A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony, as well as Forgetting Elena, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, The Married Man, and his most recent, Hotel de Dream: A New York Novel. His non-fiction includes the 1992 anthology Gay Short Fiction, States of Desire: Travels in Gay America, and several biographies, notably Genet: A Biography, for which he won the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lambda Literary Award, Marcel Proust and, in 2008, Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and of a National Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature. Edmund White lives in Manhattan and currently teaches creative writing at Princeton. Selected works A Boy’s Own Story, Dutton Adult, 1982 The Beautiful Room is Empty, Knopf, 1988 Skinned Alive: Stories, Knopf, 1995 Genet: A Biography, Vintage, 1994 The Farewell Symphony, Knopf, 1997 The Married Man, Knopf, 2000 My Lives: An Autobiography, Ecco, 2006 Hotel de Dream: A New York Novel, Ecco, 2007 Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel, Atlas, 2008 back to top