French Archives - BookDragon

Esther’s Notebooks by Riad Sattouf, translated by Sam Taylor [in Booklist]

11 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Riad Sattouf, renowned for his Arab of the Future autobiographical series, is just as famous in France for Esther’s Notebooks, which began as a weekly newspaper comic spotlighting the observations and experiences of a friend’s daughter. The comics’ popularity inspired best-selling books and an...

Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 3: From Macedonia to France by Fabien Toulmé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]

29 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW French comics creator Fabien Toulmé’s stupendous trilogy concludes Hakim’s epic three-year odyssey from war-torn Syria to finally reaching safety in France. Hannah Chute returns to deftly translate the third volume. To remind audiences of previous events – though reading in order is a gratifying must...

Always Never by Jordi Lafebre, translated by Montana Kane [in Booklist]

25 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW That this story starts with “CHAPTER 20” will likely make readers pause to wonder if an earlier volume might have been missed. But worry not, and read on. A half-dozen pages later shows “CHAPTER 19,” revealing the narrative is moving in reverse. For 37 years,...

The Pachinko Parlor by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins [in Shelf Awareness]

07 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, French, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Winter in Sokcho, the extraordinary first novel, gorgeously translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, by French Korean author Elisa Shua Dusapin, won the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The two reunite for The Pachinko Parlor, in which Dusapin's remarkably intricate and lean prose reveals...

Cinder & Glass by Melissa de la Cruz [in School Library Journal]

20 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, European, Fiction, Filipina/o American, French, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz remarkably has two 2022 Cinderella adaptations: The Stolen Slippers, introducing not-evil stepsisters, and this, in which “Cendrillon” is a Lady in King Louis XIV’s Versailles Court. So much of de la Cruz’s exceptional retelling – with even a nod to...

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li [in Booklist]

25 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, European, Fiction, French, Repost

Yiyun Li’s fiction since her son’s tragic suicide seems to have catapulted her away from the Asian roots that define her earlier award-winning fiction. Her latest begins on a pastoral farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Agnès, known as the “French bride,” lives with her husband...

The Racers: How an Outcast Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Challenged Hitler’s Best by Neal Bascomb [in School Library Journal]

10 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, European, French, German, Jewish, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

History alchemized through the Neal Bascomb lens – Russian battleship Potemkin, WWI prison camp, Nazi Germany – is a guaranteed thrill-ride; his latest takes readers into the speediest cars of the 1930s. Adapting Faster for younger audiences, Bascomb details a prominent Nazi upset played out...

The Pass by Espé, translated by J.T. Mahany [in Booklist]

06 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

French comics creator Espé made his spectacular translated debut with The Parakeet (2021), inspired by his childhood with a mother battling mental illness. He continues his autobiographical exploration via his stand-in, Bastien, who’s now the parent of two. Louis’ birth should have been joyous for Camille and...

The Good Asian (vol. 2) by Pornsak Pichetshote, illustrated by Alexandre Tefenkgi, colored by Lee Loughridge [in Booklist]

01 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Thai American, Vietnamese, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW To best appreciate this volume, readers must go back to the first book. Pornsak Pichetshote’s exquisite narration is an intricate temporal puzzle, his scenes moving between past and present, revealing just enough partial (scintillating, shocking, shrewd) backstory each time with many threads that require careful...

6,000 Miles to Freedom: Two Boys and Their Flight from the Taliban by Stéphane Marchetti, illustrated by Cyrille Pomès, translated by Hannah Chute [in Shelf Awareness]

24 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Afghan, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The title 6,000 Miles to Freedom: Two Boys and Their Flight from the Taliban is an apt distillation of the stunning graphic odyssey it entails. Author/director Stéphane Marchetti adapts the striking narrative from his 2017 documentary with Thomas Dandois, Les enfants de la jungle, illuminating the...

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier, translated by Adriana Hunter [in Booklist]

11 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Translation

Exceptional narrator Dominic Hoffman adroitly assumes the internationally mega-bestselling, 2020 Prix Goncourt-winning, Anglophoned latest from prodigious French author Hervé Le Tellier. Hoffman begins as professional assassin Blake, then becomes frustrated author Victor, film editor Lucie, and David, who is about to be diagnosed with terminal...

Booklist Backlist: Tales of Dementia [in Booklist]

02 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Jewish, Lists, Malaysian American, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Palestinian American, Repost, Spanish, Translation

Gerda Saunders, who wrote Memory’s Last Breath (2017), an exquisitely bittersweet record chronicling her experiences with dementia, is one of my most beloved friends. We have books in common, in that we find great solace and escape in the (well-)written word. Inspired by our last visit...

Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 2: From Turkey to Greece by Fabien Toulmé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]

22 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW French graphic creator Fabien Toulmé opens the second of three volumes featuring Syrian refugee Hakim and his extended family with a clever recap of the first entry, facilitated by Toulmé’s young daughter, who asks to accompany him for the next interview: Toulmé lays out...

Iranian Love Stories by Jane Deuxard, illustrated by Deloupy, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger [in Booklist]

14 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, French, Iranian, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

“I assure you, this country is a paradise for women,” a covered figure insists, her arms raised in a victorious V. But this is Iran, and her declaration doesn’t quite resonate with the local population. Two journalists – a couple publishing under the collective pseudonym...

Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 1: From Syria to Turkey by Fabien Toulmé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]

26 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW French graphic creator Fabien Toulmé transforms “the words that were entrusted“ to him into this stupendous testimony of survival. The first of three volumes (the subsequent two have published in France and are scheduled to be published in the U.S. in 2022) begins with...

Matrix by Lauren Groff [in Shelf Awareness]

17 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, European, Fiction, French, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Lauren Groff has built a significant career crafting novels and stories featuring sharp observations by and about modern women. In a surprising feat of time travel, the two-time National Book Award finalist (for Fates and Furies and Florida) leaps back to 12th-century England in Matrix and fictionalizes the life...

People Like Them by Samira Sedira, translated by Lara Vergnaud [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Translation

Samira Sedira's first English-language title, translated by Sara Vergnaud, is clearly marked "a novel" on its cover, and yet so much of the story is true. People Like Them is a fascinating amalgam of gruesome headlines – French newspapers in 2003 reported that an entire family...

Thirst by Amélie Nothomb, translated by Alison Anderson [in Shelf Awareness]

02 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Translation

To portray Jesus Christ in fiction is not new – some would agree he was always a novel creation. From Nikos Kazantzakis's classic The Last Temptation of Christ to the ongoing bestselling manga series Saint Young Men, Jesus moves copies. Prolific writer Amélie Nothomb (Tokyo Fiancée; Pétronille), who's...

In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Fiction, French, Repost, Translation

Véronique Tadjo (Far from My Father) could not have known how prescient her novel, originally published in France in 2017, would be just a few years later when it was translated for English readers. In the Company of Men gives polyphonic voice to those affected by...

Parenthesis by Élodie Durand, translated by Edward Gauvin [in Booklist]

22 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

At 24, “in 1994, or maybe 1995 already,” French artist Élodie Durand first began experiencing symptoms – what her family would later call her “spells” – that included abrupt memory loss and erratic behavior, such as baseless rage and violent outbursts. Her diagnosis of epilepsy...

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