Return to literary school. our 10 favourites

Guillaume Perilloux, of Visconti

He is young, beautiful, very pale, 15 years old, his name is Bjorn. He is an orphan of both his father and mother, and his grandmother dreams of him as an actor. We are in Stockholm in 1970, it is winter. Luchino Visconti calls him “the most beautiful boy in the world”. He will be Tadzio, this angel of death in Twilight Venice. After much research to be as close to reality as possible, in a language that is powerful, both vibrant and corporeal, without judgement, Guillaume Perilloux gives voice to all.

And it’s Visconti who writes to his friend La Calais, Helmut Berger, Visconti gives his impressions of the shoot, his welcome in Cannes, and it’s also Björn who writes in a kind of diary to his dead mother how he’s becoming. a prisoner of a world that does not attract him, how he becomes a star in Japan… Björn grows up, grows up, prefers music to movies, will have a daughter, he is no longer “the most beautiful boy”. the world.” BB:

Camila Sosa Vilada, Red Theater

The narrator is an actress (a little, a lot, passionate… the author), she is famous in Argentina, she is trans, she loves. human voice By Jean Cocteau, she loves her husband, they adopted a child. The actress is sincere, honest, she does not hide anything about her life, desires and sufferings. We loved it The villains (Heroine Madame Figaro Grand Prize 2021), we find the power of her words in this text, which, in line with Jena Rowlands, can be a hollow portrait of all these actresses driven by passion. We find the flash of his feelings also in this red, blood red, theatrical red text; “He would like the actress to give the impression of bleeding, losing blood, like a limping animal, ending the act in a room full of blood,” Cocteau wrote. BB:

Claudie Hunzinger, Winter Love

She falls in love with a fox who comes every evening to offer her wild beauty in exchange for food, which she puts outside on a plate. This book recounts the miracle of this meeting. the author ofA dog on my table digs into book after book with a tenacity that is also a pleasure, a possible exchange with nature and especially animals that comes through poetry. The ironic coincidence, moreover, invites the defeated pianist, a much younger and handsome man to her lost house, whom she manages to “catch” with the help of snow for ten days. He is happy to watch there too. Love can take many forms, says this magical novel. IP:

Miguel Bonnefoy, great family

“On the third day of his life, Antonio Borjas Romero was abandoned on the steps of a church in a street that bears his name today.” Liquid words and a gorgeous image… Miguel Bonnefoy brings all his talent as a storyteller to work in a family mural where a penniless orphan becomes a famous surgeon, where a wise child becomes the first female doctor in the region where we dream. Paris from Venezuela and vice versa amid intimate upheavals and multiple revolutions. The author creates a sensuous saga tinged with wonder, a vivid ode to the adventurers who preceded him. MTH:

Love Till Death by Michelle Kanezi and Jamil Rahman

Nicolas, a dermatologist in Paris, ended his life after learning that he was HIV positive when AIDS hit. Anesthetist Mourad from Algeria, who had come to accept his homosexuality through his shared love for Nicolas, also wants to die. The three women come together to try to bring him back to life. Malika, his mother, who is traveling from Algeria, Susan, Nicola’s mother, and Elena, the wife Murad left behind. It’s intimate and poignant, as close to this era as you can get, when young people at the start of their adulthood disappeared within months. A vibrant tribute to the loving mothers and wives who fight tirelessly for their loved ones. IP:

Women in our lives By Michel Canesi and Jamil Rahmani, Éditions Hachette, 250 p., €20.90. Released on August 21.

Alice McDermott, Napalm and Champagne

“There were so many cocktails in those days.” The holiday is set. From receptions to garden parties, the “ladies” barely have a minute to themselves. Young Patricia settles in Saigon with her lawyer husband and joins their ranks. Charlene, their charismatic and manipulative leader, then leads him on his humanitarian adventures. It is well known that hell is paved with good intentions. While the champagne flows freely at charity galas, it is napalm that these same philanthropists serve the Vietnamese population… From ellipses to flashbacks, Alice McDermott explores a dark period in American history with her engaging pen and offers us a masterpiece of wit. O.M

Nathan Hill, Illusions of Love

The meeting of Jack and Elizabeth deserves a movie. On opposite sides of a dimly lit Chicago alley, two students watch each other from their windows. Marriage and children follow. But twenty years later, what remains of this beautiful story? If the foundations of the house are strengthened by work, then the same cannot be said for spouses. Here, renovation rhymes with destruction. Nathan Hill takes his reader with crazy humor into worlds of illusions that can be treated with placebos. To be good or not – that is the question. O.M

Amelie Nothomb, Never Without Japan

“You must never return to the hidden times of memories/The blessed time of your childhood,” sang Barbara. And yet there is this temptation of eternal return. Should we resist the temptation, even if it means making this return an impossible return? Amelie Nothome can’t resist, she leaves with Pep, a photographer friend who loves cocktails and avoids dust mites, he will also be her translator in this country where she lived with her father, whom she met again in 2012 for a shoot : Amelie is a wonderful tour guide, with her we ride the subway, visit the Golden Pavilion, but above all she is the guide of our thoughts, she opens our eyes to life (and death). Thanks to him, we will never see green the same way again… BB:

Gilles Leroy, Queen and Mother

That was before. When she was called Hecuba, the sovereign of Troy, who became the wife of Priam at the age of 13, then the mother of Hector, Paris, Cassandra, and others, before war deprived her of everything. Before she turns into a wolf… Gilles Leroy draws on both Aeschylus and Virgil to make the Trojan War her own and the image of a woman who has seen her entire family die without ever leaving the battle and gives us its story; illuminating great epic stories off-camera in a work that mixes novel, theater and myth. MTH:

Pierre Darkanyan, Fantastic Symphony

This baroque thriller with a fake serial air Stranger Things composes a fantastic symphony and ode to witches of all time. The Goutte d’Or district of Paris turns into a drunken boat traveling through history, anchored by Janis, a young woman haunted by the disappearance of her mother, whose past as a radical eco-feminist she discovers in seventies Oregon. .. This intense novel challenges our fears and beliefs about the MeToo era and the “endless wave of heat.” IP: