Fall 08

LESTER LITERARY AGENCY & ASSOCIATES

FICTION Fall 2019

Eastern Europe Central Europe Baltic countries

HIGHLIGHTS HIGHLIGHTS ...... 3 DEBUT NOVEL / NEW VOICES ...... 8 UP-MARKET ...... 11 CONTEMPORARY ...... 14 COMMERCIAL ...... 17 ROMANCE / EROTICA ...... 24 FEEL GOOD ...... 25 BIO & HISTORICAL ...... 29 THRILLER ...... 35 CRIME / NOIR ...... 42 ITALIAN WRITERS ...... 45 FRENCH CANADIAN WRITERS ...... 46 FOCUS ON… ...... 47 DYSTOPIA / FANTASY / SF ...... 51 (RE)DISCOVERED WRITERS ...... 53

2 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries HIGHLIGHTS

Thomas Gunzig Jean-Baptiste Andrea FEEL GOOD CENT MILLIONS D’ANNÉES ET UN JOUR (Feel Good) (A Hundred Million Years and a Day) Diable Vauvert, August 2019, 350 pages L'Iconoclaste, August 2019, 320 pages

◊ 8,000 copies sold only one week after release. ◊ Full English translation by Sam Taylor available. ◊ A metafictional novel in which black humour and ◊ Rights sold in: Italy (Stile Libero), Germany fatalism rub shoulders with a lust for life and (Luctherhand/Btb), UK/US (Gallic books). unfailing hope. ◊ 5th favorite novel of booksellers in the “Livres ◊ Alternating between hilarious passages on the Hebdo” ranking. literary phenomenon of the moment and lucid descriptions of his time, with great intelligence, ◊ A gripping page-turner where the passionate Gunzig manages to entwine his novel with that of pursuit of an impossible dream leads to bitter his heroine to better poke fun at literature and disappointment and madness. depict his era. ◊ A poetic, mineral style that paints a portrait of the ◊ Hilarious passages about both a current literary enchanting and terrifying Dolomite landscape in phenomenon (the feel-good novel) and the small, delicate strokes. publishing world in general, rigid with absurd ◊ A novel with a powerful narrative voice, literary prizes, book fairs and rivalries, and its reverberating with echoes of tales from the hierarchy between the “real” authors and the mountains and the legendary, perilous climbs of disdained ones. Both absolutely universal and Irvine and Mallory, Maurice Herzog, and others. thoroughly enjoyable. ◊ Stan’s past, which comes out over the course of After the success of LA VIE SAUVAGE, this Belgian the novel, allows readers to grasp his complicated author’s latest novel, a cross between realism and satire, psychology: a lonely childhood in the Pyrénées, his offers an impressively clear-eyed view of today’s world. mother’s death, the humiliation his father and schoolmates subjected him to. Alice, a shoe shop sales assistant, has always been A novel about a scientific quest, and a story about going economically insecure. But she can't take having to count back to nature, experiencing cold, physical effort, and every penny and not being able to provide a better life for her son anymore. A crazy idea thus starts to form: kidnap a solitude; as well as a voyage through both madness and rich kid from a wealthy nursery and demand a ransom. childhood. Unfortunately, nothing goes according to plan and she soon finds herself with a baby that nobody wants to claim on her At the decline of his career, Stanislas Armengol, a French hands. Tom, a middling author, bumps into Alice one day paleontologist, sets off on his last crazy adventure as he and her kidnapping story gives him an idea: he suggests attempts to locate a fully preserved skeleton of a making a novel out of it and sharing the profits. Brontosaurus in the Alps in the company of Umberto, an old colleague. Arduous and extremely dangerous, this Alice, unconvinced, makes him a counteroffer: under his expedition will revive some of Stanislas’ oldest fears and tutelage, she will write a “feel good book”, following the weaknesses before turning into a deathly struggle between popular style of today, a bestseller likely to sell hundreds of man and nature. A hallucinatory climb toward the heights of thousands of copies and take her off the poverty line once madness and dreams. and for all ... Following the success of My Queen, this second novel ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Thomas Gunzig was born in Brussels provides confirmation of a prodigious talent. in 1970. He is the author of several collections of short-stories acclaimed by the critic. MORT D’UN PARFAIT BILINGUE won ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jean-Baptiste Andrea was a movie the 2001 Prix Rossel in Belgium. LE PLUS PETIT ZOO DU director and screenwriter. Then he wrote MA REINE (22,000 MONDE (rights sold in China and Bulgaria) followed by KURU, copies sold, winner of 12 prizes including the Prix du Premier (finalist in the Prix de Flore, 2005). LA VIE SAUVAGE (2017 sold Roman and the Prix Femina des Lycéens, 9 foreign licenses), 10.000 copies). and for two years he traveled tomore than 50 cities, in France and abroad, meeting readers, booksellers and librarians. Now he is “It is funny, spirited with a scathing irony on the book publishing leaving behind the cinema for literature. industry.” Voici

3 HIGHLIGHTS Cécile Coulon Sophie Bassignac UNE BÊTE AU PARADIS LE PLUS FOU DES DEUX (A Beast in Paradise) (The Craziest Amongst Both of Them) L'Iconoclaste, August 2019, 352 pages JC Lattès, August 2019, 240 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Israel (U Sifrut She’nogaat), Italy ◊ An interesting exploration of the world of (E/O), Greece. puppetry making.

◊ Awarded the Prix littéraire du Monde 2019. ◊ An encounter that will reconcile Lucie with a painful past. ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Intérallié 2019 and the Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française. ◊ Illusion, betrayal, humiliation and a thirst for revenge are at the heart of this darkly exhilarating ◊ The story of women from an all-female lineage novel that paints the portrait of an artist caught up who sacrifice everything for the land they pass in passion and quickly overcome. down from mother to daughter. Famous puppeteer, Lucie Paugham thus makes the ◊ Intense, relentless suspense masterfully conducted mistake of letting a complete stranger into her life, by Cécile Coulon, who draws the reader into a nerve-wracking huis clos despite the risk of losing everything she has accomplished. ◊ Blanche, a fascinating character: hyper-sensitive and capable of absolute, murderous love “Someone told me once that you should never force those A love triangle set in the French countryside where the who wish to die to stay alive.They will make you pay for reader will enjoy Coulon's usual skill with words and the your stubbornness.” beautifully earthy descriptions of nature and the countryside. What do you say to a stranger who dares you to stop him from committing suicide on New Year’s Eve? Well, of course you say that you will try to help him to change his When Blanche's high-school boyfriend Alexandre returns to mind.Especially if, by chance or by destiny, you were their village after ten years in the city, Blanche's past feelings confronted by the same request thirty years earlier by your resurge. But Louis, the farmhand who has always had own father… (unrequited) feelings for Blanche, is determined to keep Alexandre as far away from her as he can. A story about ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sophie Bassignac is the author of generational change, the city encroaching upon the several acclaimed novels with JC Lattès; among which, MER countryside. A love story, consuming love, love of nature, AGITÉE À TRÈS AGITÉE (2014), SÉDUIRE ISABELLE A.(2016) love of each other, and also of course lust and desire. and LA DISTANCE DE COURTOISIE (2018). LE PLUS FOU DES DEUX is her ninth novel. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Since her first book, written at seventeen years old, Cécile Coulon never ceases to surprise and « Pétri d’intelligence, riche de réflexions à graver dans le marbre amaze us. In just a few years, she has produced six novels, (sur l’époque, le bonheur, la beauté, la création, le désir, l’humour, la including TROIS SAISONS D’ORAGE, winner of the Prix des mémoire), Le plus fous des deux est le plus abouti des livres de libraires, and a collection of poems (Prix Apollinaire 2017). Sophie Bassignac. », L’express

« Un feel good book ? Et pourquoi pas. Celui-ci n’a rien de mièvre. C’est là tout le charme des portraits de femmes compose, depuis ses débuts, Sophie Bassignac». Le monde

4 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Yannick Grannec Alexis Ragougneau LES SIMPLES OPUS 77 (The Simples) (Opus 77) Anne Carrière, August 2019, 368 pages Viviane Hamy, September 2019, 256 pages

◊ Under option in: Czech Republic (Argo). ◊ Rights sold in: Spain (Alianza). ◊ Set on the French Riviera in the 16th century, the ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Fémina 2019. author signs here a historic novel full of mysterious secrets, intrigues and complex ◊ A nuanced, spare, and resolutely modern style characters. imbued with as much suspense and tension as a murder mystery. ◊ The female charaters are well-learned and charismatic and sister Clémence is an expert ◊ Readers are gradually led into an ambivalent world herborist. The reader discovers an intricate of classical music, and are introduced to the universe filled with captivating tales, concoctions captivating life of Shostakovich, the composer of recipes and jaw-dropping descriptions of nature. Opus 77 who suffered greatly because of Stalin. The character Ariane, a piano virtuoso and an ◊ A well-paced story in the midst of the catholic and ◊ protestant conflicts. iron-willed woman who composes her self-image as a cold, inaccessible genius in order to survive in The convent of Notre-Dame du Loup benefits from a a cutthroat environment. certain leniency from the King and lives in harmony Ariane and her brother David grow up in the harsh following a set of house rules. This freedom will be put to universe of classical music. Backstage, their family drama the test when the new bishop of Vence, Jean de Solines and their love stories unfold. As the family experience a has decided to claim back the Abbey and restore within tragedy, we discover their power struggles, the tyranny of its walls the old faith under his jurisdiction. success and the impact of the unspoken. This novel is also an ode to the music of Shostakovich. 1584, in Provence. Notre-Dame du Loup abbey is a haven of peace for the small community of Benedictines who The Claessens are a family with music in their blood. The devote their lives to God and to soothing His chil- dren’s father is a conductor who has sacrificed everything - suffering. These nuns owe their unusual independence to a including his wife Yaël, a singer from Israel - to work his way king’s favour, and their autonomy to the gift of their dean, up to the highest rank of the musical hierarchy. Ariane, the Sister Clémence, an herbalist whose preprations of daughter, is a gifted pianist. Her dexterity, the fruit of her medicinal plants, (the “simples”), are highly prized at the relentless work, full of intelligence and subtlety, is known king’s court. Jean de Solines, the new bishop of Vence, is throughout the world. She lines up concerts and shoots for determined to monopolize this financial godsend. He magazine covers, back to back. But it is another member of dispatches two dedicated curates, one of them the young the Claessens family that all music amateurs and and sensitive Léon, to inspect the abbey. Their unofficial professionals are talking about: David, the son, who dared purpose is to find there cause for scandal or, for lack of any, to achieve the unimaginable at the prestigious Queen to prompt one. But far from imagining the extent of the fire Elizabeth competition, which can launch the careers of he kindled, the bishop will find himself overwhelmed by his young promising talent. After this event, the breakup with own intrigues. He should have known that, as soon as you his father will be total, definitive and irreversible. The story half-open the door, the devil feels at home. The bishop, the of a family with intense relations ruled by complex power abbess, the healer, the bonesetter, the lord and the slattern struggles, the tyranny of success, and the impact of the all connive with the Devil. And nobody is ever so simple as unspoken. they seem. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alexis Ragougneau, born in 1973 ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Yannick Grannec lives in Saint-Paul- wrote LA MADONE DE NOTRE-DAME, EVANGILE POUR UN de-Vence. LES SIMPLES is her third novel. She has previously GUEUX and NIELS, which was shortlisted for the prix Goncourt. published at Anne Carrière LES DÉESSES DES PETITES VICTOIRES (50.000 copies sold and translated in ten countries) which received the Prix des Libraires 2012. “Full of suspense, Alexis Ragougneau describes the microcosm of classical music and brings us into the work of Shostakovich”. Livres Hebdo “A mineral novel written in a somptuous style, Yannick Grannec intermingles individual destinies with a troubled historical context.” Lire “No false notes. Alexis Ragougneau, a virtuoso author, builds his novel in successive movements, setting the tone, conducting a choir of readers”. Page des libraires.

5 HIGHLIGHTS Jean-Paul Dubois Jean-Paul Dubois TOUS LES HOMMES N'HABITENT PAS LE UNE VIE FRANÇAISE MONDE DE LA MÊME FAÇON (A French Life) (All Men Live in This World Differently) L'Olivier, September-04, 368 pages L'Olivier, August 2019, 252 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Ullstein), China (Horizon ◊ Rights sold in: UK Maclehose press preempt), Media), Spanish (Tempora), English (UK, Penguin Netherlands (De Arbeiderspers), Israel (Hakibbutz – USA Knopf), Greece (Digisi), Italy (Rizzoli/RCS), Hameuchad – Sifriat Poalim), Russia (Eksmo), Japan (Chikuma Shobo), The Netherlands (De Greece (Doma Books). Arbeiderspers), Portugal (ASA), Poland (Foksal), Korea (Balgunsesa). ◊ Spanish offer. ◊ Awared the Prix Fémina 2004. ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Goncourt 2019. ◊ A coming of age story set against the political ◊ The fate of characters who are at once ordinary environment of the Fifth Republic. and exceptional people: Paul’s father, a Danish pastor who winds up in Canada, laid low by his ◊ From Charles de Gaulle to Jacques Chirac, from addiction to gambling; Horton, a philosophical his first kisses to his first white hair, Paul Blick Hell’s Angel with a fear of barbers; and Paul’s wife, hesitates between his desire of revolt, a bourgeois Winona, a regal Native American, who spends her wellbeing and the pursuit of a disillusioned time flying people from one end of Quebec to the absolute. other. ◊ Blick’s life, that many French people can identify Dubois describes human relationships with concision, with, is part of History in progress and is shaped humor and sadness, painting the portrait of a society by the world as much as it shapes it. where an accused murderer awaiting trial is capable of In this unforgettable French brother of Rabbit Angstrom showing more humanity than a cost-cutting condominium and Frank Bascombe, Jean-Paul Dubois gives us a man administration. whose life reflects the story—the mind and the heart— of a society coming belatedly, poignantly, and often Paul Hansen has been in jail for two years in a province of hilariously to grips with the abiding pain and intermittent Montréal where he shares his cell with Horton, a Hell’s angel incarcerated for murder. Son of a Danish pastor and beauty of what living has become. of a beautiful French woman who runs a cinema in Toulouse, Paul was already living in Canada when the Meet Paul Blick: born in France (but not Paris); son of a car dramatic incident happened. At the time, Hansen was a dealer; provincial sociology student-cum-theoretical superintendent at the Excelsior where beyound his revolutionary; briefly employed (by his father-in-law); responsibilities he helped lost souls and consolated the married and soon to discover adultery and other afflicted. When he is off duty he spends his time with satisfactions of a desperate househusband as consort of a Winona, his companion. This half Indian woman pilote takes high-flying wife who conquers the world as CEO of a him into the sky and above the clouds. When a new Jacuzzi-manufacturing company. manager arrives at the Excelsior, Paul’s life is thoroughly changed, conflicts ensue and the inevitable happens. A silted This not-so-extraordinary Frenchman is delivered to the church in the dunes of a beach, an asbestos mine under an not-so-extraordinary awareness of having arrived in middle open sky, the meanders of a silver river, the musical waves age more a product of his times, his country, and blind of an organ and the white trail of a plane compose the chance than a creature of his own free will. Jean-Paul landscapes of this novel. The story of a lifetime, this text is Dubois gives us a man whose life reflects the story – the Jean-Paul Dubois’s best accomplishment. We discover an mind and the heart – of a society coming belatedly, author who possesses a great sense of fraternity and who is poignantly, and often hilariously to grips with the abiding inhabited by a feeling of rebellion against any kind of pain and intermittent beauty of what living has become. injustice. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jean-Paul Dubois was born in 1950 in ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jean-Paul Dubois was born in 1950 in Toulouse, where he still lives today. The author of many novels Toulouse. He was awarded the prix France Télévisions for and collections of travel writing, he is also a reporter for Le Nouvel KENNEDY ET MOI (Le Seuil, 1996), and the prix Femina as well Observateur. as the prix du roman Fnac for UNE VIE FRANÇAISE (L’Olivier, 2004). His last novel, LA SUCCESSION (L’Olivier, 2016) was a great success, 120,000 copies were sold.

6 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Dominique Barbéris Franck Bouysse UN DIMANCHE À VILLE-D’AVRAY NÉ D’AUCUNE FEMME (A Sunday In Ville-d’Avray) (Of No Woman Born) Arléa, August 2019, 120 pages La Manufacture de livres, January 2019, 336 pages

◊ Rights sold in: USA (The Other Press). ◊ Rights sold in: Italy (Neri Pozza), World English (Other Press), Greece (Kastaniotis), Spain ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Goncourt 2019. (Anagrama).

◊ Long-listed for the Prix Fémina 2019. ◊ 100.000 copies sold. ◊ The writing is exquisite, reminiscent of Modiano ◊ Prix Des Libraires 2019, Prix Psychologie and Duras. A total pleasure from beginning to end, Magazine, Grand Prix Des Lectrices Elle, Prix wonderfully elegant, refined, so different from Babelio. what we read today. ◊ A masterful novel about the depths of the human ◊ The title is a distant echo of the magical — and soul, the misery and conditioning of people. At the mysteriously disturbing — film, released in 1962, same time social chronicle, intimate story and which marked, like a meteor, French cinema. horrifying tale, nobody comes out unscathed from this story. ◊ Louis Malle would have made a wonderful film! Similar to Moderato Cantabile or In the Mood for ◊ “A striking and bewitching fresco, a tumult of Love. emotions with a thousand shades of night.” L’Express Two sisters very close in their childhood and now both Told through diary entries found in an insane asylum, Né married, live in Ville d'Avray, a middle class suburb of d'aucune femme tells the story of 14 years-old Rose Paris close to the ponds painted by Corot. whose father farmer sold to a richer man, too poor to cover her cost of living. Setting in the rural France, this The house with its pretty garden is surrounded by similar exquisitly written story is a social chronicle and a horror ones. The neighbours watch each others. One of these tale. Sundays, probably in the early autumn they remember the television and literary characters they were obsessed with as A 14 years-old girl is sold as a slave by her misery father to young girls. But then Claire Marie the beautiful and quiet a rich depraved man who lives with his old mother and his sister who lives such an ordinate life between her doctor husband and her teenage daughter, tells her sister about an sick wife. Rose, abused, is interned in an asylum where she writes a diary. In this way, from the shadows, emerge Rose’s encounter she made ten years earlier. The man was called notebooks, the ones in which she told her story, seeking to Marc Hermann and claimed to be of Hungarian origin. They met again. Secret meetings in distant cafes, walks in the shatter the secret with which her fate had been covered. Franck Bouysse, winner of more than ten literary prizes, deserted parks, next to the ponds, sharing an obvious desire offers one of his most vibrant works. This sensitive and for each other but never accomplishing it. One day, he stopped by the road and said that he had enough. She now poignant novel confirms his immense talent for recounting both the greatness and the flaws of the human soul. had to come to his place. She had one day to think about it, she had the address. If she didn't come, he would ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Franck Bouysse, born in 1965 wrote disappear.The following day she goes there but doesn't find GROSSIR LE CIEL (2014, 100.000 copies sold / Prix polar SNCF his name at the door of the building. Frightened she retreats 2017 + Prix Livre en Poche Gradignan, Italian Rights sold to Neri and goes back home. And indeed never sees him again. Or Pozza, then PLATEAU (2016, 50.000 copies sold), and GLAISE so she says to her sister… But her neighbour says a strange (2017, 11.000 copies sold) met with great success, collecting a man has been spotted in the neighbourhood. The number of literary prizes and establishing Bouysse on the French telephone rings from time to time but no one replies. It may literary scene. not fulfil an entire life but it was the possibility of something else, something she could dream of, regret, or remember “A noir jewel. Take Light of August by Faulkner and My Absolute with pleasure. Darling by Gabriel Tallent, add the glowing beauty of the language and the weight of the history and taboos, you'll have a literary shock. “ La Grande Librairie ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dominique Barbéris teaches at Sorbonne University and runs writing workshops. Her first book LA VILLE (1996). Was followed by LES KANGOUROUS adapted “Both classic and phantasmagoric, Of no woman born proves to the screen in 2005 by Anne Fontaine under the title Entre ses that romance can still dazzle.” Le Monde Des Livres mains. QUELQUE CHOSE À CACHER was awarded by the Prix des Deux Magots and the Prix de la Ville de Nantes in 2008.And L’ ANNÉE DE L’ÉDUCATION SENTIMENTALE was awarded with the Jean-Freustié Prize / Fondation de France in 2018. 7 DEBUT NOVEL / NEW VOICES DEBUT NOVEL / NEW VOICES

Guillaume Lavenant Guillaume Sorensen PROTOCOLE GOUVERNANTE LE PLANISPHÈRE LIBSKI (The Governess’s Protocol) (The Libksi Planisphere) Payot Rivages, August 2019, 190 pages L'Olivier, August 2019, 336 pages

◊ English sample chapter available. ◊ A coming of age story that is resolutely modern and delightfully surrealist. ◊ Awarded the Prix révélation de la forêt des livres 2019. ◊ A satire of travel writing and a questionning of what is really serious. ◊ Long-listed for the Prix de Flore 2019. ◊ A literary text that is bold, literary and always ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Médicis 2019. refreshingly light. ◊ Was selected for the Prix Stanislas 2019 and Prix At 26 years old, after having finished studies of Première Plume 2019. philosophy, Théodore-James Libski does not know what In a leafy suburb, a seemingly ideal family’s life is to do of his life : he is submerged by a feeling of profoundly disturbed by the arrival of a governess whose boredom and does not know how to vanquich his intentions are unclear. A hypnotic and extremely anxieties. By lack of other option he accepts his father’s cinematographic debut novel with tremendous narrative compromise, an esteemed civil servant of the United power. Nations : to take part in an expedition aboard L’Izoard in order to study the migration of endangered species. One Wednesday, a governess rings the doorbell of a house in a tidy, quiet suburb. The well-off couple that welcomes Théodore-James embarks on a ship and meets with a quirky her offers a few tips about their daughter, Elena, who she crew of scientists, artists and street performers. Together, will be caring for. The governess smiles, folds her hands in they visit the Flemish coasts, Alaska, Japan… They will her lap, and modulates her voice pleasantly, reassuring the observe seals, small fishes and the last migratory pigeon. couple and putting them at ease... By following the protocol They will overcome a mutiny caused by the veganism of dreamt up by the strange Lewis, the governess soon makes part of the crew. They will cross path with a celibrity who herself indispensable. She will become the confidante, the found solace at the top of a glacier and will follow the trail lover, and the object of the whole seemingly ideal family’s of a solitary whale. Will this trip help Théodore-James to repressed desires. But the governess is not alone; a number find his path ? Or was the whole enterprise doomed from of people have secretly infiltrated society in different places. the beginning ? And in what way can animals reveal to As the veneer starts to crack, and the governess’s ourselves our humanity ? ascendancy grows, the tension becomes more and more palpable. Until the big day arrives.. A comical, original and delighful debut novel.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Guillaume Lavenant is an author and ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Guillaume Sørensen has completed a a director. He performs his creative, literary work in the fields of master in creative writing in le Havre. LE PLANISPHÈRE LIBKSI is theatre, performance art, and narrative writing. PROTOCOLE his first novel. He lives and works in Belgium. GOUVERNANTE is his first novel.

« Manipulatrice en diable, la mécanique narrative s’avère redoutable et, au fil des pages, bien plus politique qu’il n’y paraît » Lire

« Un livre qui secoue le lecteur et le fait sortir de sa zone de confort. Et un projet d’une audace folle. » Technikart

« Un premier roman à l’atmosphère unique, immersive et complètement opaque. » Page des Libraires

« A l’instar du beau jeune homme dans Théorème de Pasolini, la gouvernante vient ravager l’équilibre bourgeois préétabli. Elle est en mission, comme d’autres peut-être. Jusqu’où ira-t-elle? » Livres Hebdo

8 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Véronique Pierron Olly Dorchamps LES MIRACLES DE L'OURCQ CEUX QUE JE SUIS (The Ourcq’s Miracles) (Those That I Am) Belfond, October 2019, 270 pages Finitude, August 2019, 250 pages

◊ Awarded the Prix Jean Anglade du Premier ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Envoyé par la Poste 2019. Roman. ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Méditerranée du premier ◊ A Bohemian village on the edge of Paris along the roman. banks of the Canal de l’Ourcq. A colourful community stubbornly attached to life despite all ◊ Talent Cultura 2019. the hardships endured that is in search of meaning, ◊ Long-listed for the Prix du roman FNAC 2019. and also of love… ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Patrimoines 2019. ◊ An irresistible debut novel and a stylistic tour de force that speaks to the heart, imbued with ◊ Each of the three generations of characters humanity and hope and championing the right to described in this book has a different relationship be different. to their native land – be it France or Morocco – but each one intertwines elements of both fantasy ◊ An ‘Amélie Poulain’ universe. and lived reality.

Along the banks of the Canal de l’Ourcq in Paris, a ◊ Olivier Dorchamps’s great strength lies in his rejected community has constructed little villages of reserve and the light touch with which he cardboard houses covered in tarpaulins. Their world is addresses difficult subjects. This very visual novel reminiscent of that of Emir Kusturica, springing into reveals its subtlety through enjoyably funny scenes, well-fleshed-out minor characters, and colour and life and offering seemingly unlimited details that hit their mark. possibilities. ◊ The unfussy writing and straightforward narrative Among them is the Old Man, who lives in a makeshift style, shaded with humor, avoids the traps of both caravan after a nervous breakdown and indulges his passion pathos and grandiloquence. for knitting, Sandra, a former office worker with Tourette’s A multi-facetted novel : the chronicle of a family in syndrome, Bella, the clairvoyant of the Roms village, and mourning, the evocation of an uprooting and of complex Noury and his much-cherished violin. There is also Juno the relationships to one’s roots. Brazilian poet, who is illiterate but has fallen madly in love with an infirm and increasingly successful female writer. When their father, a mechanic in a working-class suburb of Paris, passes away, the three Mansouri brothers are This marginalised community survives by trying to make the surprised to find out that he wanted to be buried in most of their circumstances as an antidote to a sense of Casablanca. None of the three really wants to go to despair. Until the day when miracles start to occur along the Morocco, where they feel uncomfortably foreign, but in the banks of the Ourcq... end, the eldest, Marwan, the history teacher, agrees to fly the body home in a coffin. So he’s the one their ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1974, Véronique Pierron is a grandmother will tell her life story to, the oral history of a journalist who covers economics, history, politics and science as well as writing on education and literature for Le Monde de 13-year- old Berber girl who was sold to a rich Moroccan l’Education. LES MIRACLES DE L'OURCQ is her first novel. family. She explains to him that her own son, Marwan’s father, was so ashamed of what she was subjected to that he left Morocco for France. Strolling through the streets of Casablanca, running into his father’s old friends, Marwan starts the process of truly laying to rest a man who was far more complex than the son had ever realized.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Olivier Dorchamps was born in Geneva and lives in London. The son of a cosmopolitan family, he has dual, Franco- British citizenship. His taste for French literature led him to choose that language for his first novel, CEUX QUE JE SUIS.

“Un très beau livre sur les origines et l’identité, d’une étonnante justesse de ton.” Jérôme Garcin, le Masque et la Plume

9 DEBUT NOVEL / NEW VOICES Gabrielle Levy Jacky Durand AU RENDEZ-VOUS DES INSOMNIAQUES LE CAHIER DE RECETTES (The Rendez-Vous Of Insomniacs) (Monsieur Henri’s Secret Recipes) JC Lattès, March 2019, 224 pages Stock, April 2019, 220 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Hodder), Italy (Salani), ◊ Rights still available in: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Sweden (Sekwa), Greece (Dioptra), Serbia Georgia, Poland, Slovenia. (Vulkan). ◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Rowohlt/Kinlder,) UK & ◊ A debut novel, full of humanity, which deals with Commonwealth (Hodder), the Netherlands an universal, original and deep subject: insomnia. (Bezige Bij/Cargo), Spain (Grijalbo), Greece (Patakis), Israel (Achuzat Bayit) Italy (Solferino), ◊ Follow five complex and endearing characters Taiwan (Chi Ming), Slovakia (Albatros media), during their night-time peregrinations. What's Czech Republic (Host), Lithuania (Alma Littera), keep them awaked? Israel (Achuzat Bayit), Estonia (Täpanäev), ◊ An inventive and tightly-woven intrigue, likable Hungary (Park Kiado), Serbia (Laguna), Finland characters and a confident pen, this is the story of (Otava), Iceland (Forlagid), Romania (RAO), five people whose nights are nothing but a long Russia (Arkadia). wait in the dark… ◊ A simple but heartwarming story of a son's love ◊ It is also a reflection on how society treats those for his father and an unbreakable bond, forged who cannot conform to its “normal” rhythms. around a mutual love for food and the art of cooking. Five men and women from all walks of life who have only one thing in common: insomnia. ◊ The writing is delightful and the themes it presents universal.

Claire fears the immensity of silence in the countryside ◊ The social class preoccupation is very interesting where she lives, her husband’s snoring and a young boy and adeptly explored. who is not her own. Jacques is a psychiatrist near the end of his career whose nighttime solitude, interrupted only by A tender and mouth-watering story of inheritance, taking sporadic anonymous phone calls. Michele is a gentle retiree place in a French bistro. with a dark secret that urges her to leave her bed every night to go to church. Lena is a young Goth who occupies Monsieur Henri is an incomparable cook, one of those chefs her early mornings by helping out in a nearby café. Hervé is who can delight the taste buds with almost nothing. He runs a shy and nervous accountant who anxiously awaits his Le Relais Fleuri, an unpretentious French bistro that still professional emails in the darkness. manages to give its customers everything they could wish for... on a plate. There’s one thing Henri is sure of: Le Relais They all suffer from chronic insomnia that is gradually will close when he goes. Under no circumstances will his excluding them from normal daytime activities. They attend son Julien take it over. regular meetings hosted by sleep specialist Marie-Hélène who is determined to help them. When Henri falls into a coma, Julien spends many hours holding his hand and using his memories to try to bring back Confessions are made and friendships are formed but will to life the culinary heritage of this very secretive father. this therapy finally help them all sleep? Soon Julien has a single obsession: finding the notebook of recipes that he thinks he’s seen so many times in his life, ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gabrielle Levy was born in Brussels in where his father wrote down his mysterious tricks... But 1978. Confirmed insomniac, she divides her time between Paris while he searches, he comes across another secret, a family and the countryside. AU RENDEZ-VOUS DES INSOMNIAQUES one, and understands why his father let his wife leave is her first novel. without a word.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jacky Durand is a culinary journalist. His sensuous, epicurean, gastronomical columns delight thousands of readers and listeners. LE CAHIER DE RECETTES is his debut novel.

10 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries

UP-MARKET

Hélène Gaudy Jeanne Benameur UN MONDE SANS RIVAGE CEUX QUI PARTENT (A World Without a Shore) (Those Who Depart) Actes Sud, August 2019, 320 pages Actes Sud, August 2019, 336 pages

◊ English sample chapter availlable. ◊ A novel with multiple characters, all gathered on the day of theur arrival on Ellis Island, alls looking ◊ Rights sold in: World Spanish (Tusquets). for a new life and writing a new destiny. ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Goncourt 2019. A handful of them come ashore on Ellis Island and with ◊ A fascinating and tremendously documented novel them the 20th century takes its first faltering steps along about all the failed explorations of all the pioneers the path to liberty and happiness. who tried to locate the North Pole.

◊ The fate of men full of hope who remain positive In Andrew Jónsson’s photographs we can see the Italian even when they know their end is inevitable. actor Donato with his red book in his pocket and on his arm his daughter Emilia, who is ready to flourish. And Esther ◊ The reader can only admire the explorers’ spirit the Armenian, the orphan of an entire people. And the and can connect through notes, samples and gypsy clan around Gabor the violinist. photos that remain as a trace of their attempt. 1897. Three men left on a hot-air balloon to explore the And then all those who arrived before them who have North Pole. None will ever return. Their remains are already started to build this city which is reaching for the found only 33 years later, petrified in the Arctic’s ice. skies and for the future. The family of the young Andrew Among their belongings, their travel diaries and and some have left behind them in Iceland the most profound of sorrows and there is a tacit solidarity in the silence of the film rolls… father, the complicity of the grandmother and the very American mother whose sights are set on the future. There Summer 1930, Svalbard: a walrus hunting boat sets sail for is also the free-spirited Hazel who prostitutes her body with White Island, one of the last lands before the North Pole. her head held high and the remarkable little Lucile Lenbow. The melting of the ice has revealed terrain that is usually inaccessible. As they move across the island, the men They are all seeking to give shape to their exile and to lay discover bodies and the remains of a makeshift camp. It is the foundations of their own country. And what if the night the solution to a mystery that has hung in the air for 33 were the only universal language? years: the disappearance in July 1897 of Salomon August Andrée, Knut Frænkel and Nils Strindberg as they tried to ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A blend of novel and poetry, Jeanne reach the North Pole in hot air balloons… Among the Benameur’s art engages with the world and the people who remains some rolls of negatives are found and some one inhabit it through the prism of liberty and authenticity. A body of hundred images are retrieved. work with profound and powerful resonances, most of which has been published by Actes Sud. Based on these lunar-like black and white photographs and the expedition logbook, Hélène Gaudy retraces and re- imagines this great adventure that was blown off course. From the conquest of the skies to the exploration of the poles, this novel reflects on the human need to circumscribe, discover, describe, conquer and ultimately shrink the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Paris in 1979, Hélène Gaudy studied at the school of decorative arts in Strasbourg. She is a member of the Inculte collective and lives in Paris. She is the author of six novels. She has also written some dozen books for children.

11 UP-MARKET Odile d'Outremont Agathe Colombier-Hochberg BAIKONOUR LES 7 PREMIERS JOURS (Baikonour) (The First Seven Days) L’Observatoire, August 2019, 224 pages Belfond, May 2019 200 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Ullstein/List Verlag), ◊ Alternating from one chapter to another the two Italy. points of view, this moving novel tells of the agony of love, and dissects the dying feelings of a couple ◊ The character of Anka, a strong young woman, with a scalpel. who chooses to reinvent her destiny after the death of her father decides to fight in order to An unspoken conversation between a man and a woman, become a fisherman as he once was. the seven first days after they broke up. ◊ A tale about the willingness of human beings to face natural elements and put themselves in a A man and a woman are waiting at the train station. At first, perilous situation. they seem to be a normal couple; but when you look closer, you see something is wrong. Actually, he is about to ◊ The inverted situation between children and break up with her. Not because he does not love her adults is presented here with great tenderness. anymore, but for fear of losing her even more. She already ◊ A poetic, fanciful second novel in the spirit of Wes seems so far away from him... Anyway, he decides not to Anderson’s off-the-wall universe and atmosphere. get on the train. He decides to let her go. Then, he regrets it immediately. Meet Anka. A young woman living in a little fishermen town in Britany, France. A young woman who just lost her Although she is upset and mad at him, she does not realize dad, a seasoned angler, in a boating accident. Already he has not followed her to the railway carriage number 7. quite lonely, Anka is left with a growing feeling of despair, Sitting in her place, she stares deeply at her mobile phone. and to make things worse, her mother seems to be Will her other lover send her a message? She knows she is unable to grasp reality since her beloved husband acting in badly, but she cannot help but think about this drowned. other man. She was so glad when she met Antoine because she was so bored in her long-standing relationship. Nevertheless, she is beginning to regret her behavior to this Anka works in a hairdressing salon, yet she knows that her man who has trusted her so much. But where is he now? heart belongs to the sea as well. She dreams of taking on Not in the train with her, that’s for sure. her father’s legacy, but it would be her mother’s worst nightmare, so she daydreams in the salon and watches the They had planned to spend their holidays in Greece. But is boats sail by... Meet Marcus. Also quite lonesome, the young the trip cancelled now that he seems to have left her? Or man works as a crane driver in a construction site in the are they going to find each other again abroad, far from the same town as Anka. He spends his days his head in the madding crowd of Paris? clouds, looking at the little town below. There is one person he looks for particularly, a mesmerizing brunette, always lost ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1968 in Paris, Agathe in her thoughts... Anka. Every morning he awaits her daily Colombier-Hochberg is an author and a scriptwriter. She wrote walk on the sea shore, but one day, he looks so intensely several sucessful novels as Ce crétin de prince charmant (2003), that he falls. He falls on the ground as hard as he fell in love. Mes amies, mes amours, mais encore.. ? (2005), and Rien de Anka, not knowing who he is, will go and visit the poor soul personnel (2015). in a coma, every single day, at the hospital. When he wakes up, it is pure destiny that he and Anka’s path will cross again, but let’s hope, in a less brutal fashion. A tender, slightly melancholic story and love story. Here, an author confirms her reputation: in her own uniquely colorful and poetic way, filled with both whimsy and emotion, Odile d’Oultremont once again portrays the world’s seriousness and absurdity with great subtlety and insight.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Odile d’Oultremont is a Belgian screenwriter and filmmaker. Her first novel LES DÉRAISONS received the Closerie des Lilas Award. BAÏKONOUR is her second novel.

12 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries

Isabelle Autissier Maxence Fermine OUBLIER KLARA LA PROBABILITÉ DU BONHEUR (Forgetting Klara) (The Possibility of Happiness) Stock, May 2019, 340 pages Michel Lafon, November 2019, 256 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Mare, 5 figure deal), Italy Noah has nothing to complain about: a forty-something (Rizzoli). with a day job he likes, a single guy who enjoys his freedom and the company of his friends, in fact one could say he has ◊ 25,000 copies sold. everything he needs to be happy. And yet he feels ◊ Best-selling author in France and Germany. something is missing. Lo and behold, Noah embarks on a quest to find perfect happiness: should he start a new Klara, Rubin, Iouri: three generations in a snowbound, activity? Meet new people? Turn his life around? What does man-eating Russia. it take to be really happy?

Mourmansk, in the Arctic Circle. Lying on his hospital bed, ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Maxence Fermine was born in 1968 Rubin knows he’s a condemned man. The only thing in Savoy, France. His singular talent for poetic prose has garnered keeping him alive is an enigma: when he was just a child, his plaudits and attention since publication of his best-selling debut mother Klara, a scientific researcher for Stalin, was arrested novel NEIGE (Snow), translated in 20 languages. A multi-talented in front of him. What became of her? This taboo has cast a author, he writes for adults and children and has published a dozen novels with Albin Michel and Michel Lafon. shadow over his whole life and hardened his heart. A fisherman by profession, he’s happier squaring up to the toughest elements than the company of men. He has even grown increasingly unforgiving towards his own son, Iouri, treating the boy roughly on his trawler during terrifying fishing trips in the Barents Sea. Iouri’s only means of escape was his passion for birdwatching.

But when his father needs him, the now adult Iouri answers his call: don’t forget Klara! Fight history and fight silence. What is Klara’s secret? As he investigates, Iouri will uncover a vital truth that brings their lives together.

Forgetting Klara is a magnificent personal adventure, set against glimpses of a harsh yet liberating natural world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Isabelle Autissier is the first woman to have sailed solo around the world. She writes novels, short stories and essays, including her latest SOUDAIN, SEULS which sold 95,000 copies, was translated into ten languages and is currently under adaptation as an international feature film. She is Chairwoman of WWF France.

“A captivating novel about memory and nature.” Le Figaro Littérair

« Un héros attachant et incarné »

« Isabelle Autissier explore le destin tourmenté de l’URSS à travers le personnage de Klara »

« Un vigoureux souffle romanesque »

« Une aventure puissante » Lire

13 CONTEMPORARY CONTEMPORARY

Julia Deck Julien Dufresne-Lamy PROPRIÉTÉ PRIVÉE JOLIS, JOLIS MONSTRES (Private Property) (Beautiful, Beautiful Monsters) Minuit, September 2019, 176 pages Belfond, August 2019, 406 pages

◊ Julia Deck’s concise, ironic, and subtle style ◊ A novel which spans three decades and takes in manages to capture a character or scene’s essence Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta, exploring in just a few sentences, for a totally captivating with great subtlety and imagination drag culture, read. the art of voguing and gender identity questions. ◊ A rogues’ gallery of hypocritical, petty, and ◊ With puritanism on the rise again in terribly ordinary characters, who could be contemporary society, this colourful novel anyone’s least-favorite neighbors. presents a much-needed alternative perspective. ◊ The topic of madness, which is so dear to the A former 1980s drag queen from New York and a young author, is declined from a sudden urge to kill the gangster and future drag queen from Los Angeles cross neighbor’s cat to premeditated homicide. paths. Julia Deck is back with another delightfully crazy tale. At once side-splittingly funny and deeply worrisome, it is It is 2015 and a waiter serves a customer in a New York irresistible! bar. One is a 59-year-old African American with a painful past and the other is a young Latino who has decided to start over in life. They seemingly have noth- ing in common, Eva and her husband had been dreaming of owning a house. but they come to recognise themselves in each other. For So they decide to leave Paris for an eco-district in the near many years, James was one of the most beautiful creatures suburbs. They’re sure they’ve gotten a great deal and are in the world, and that is what Victor would like to become. convinced they’re going to be happy in their little house with its backyard. But they are soon disillusioned by the lack ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Julien Dufresne-Lamy is thirty years of privacy, and the pleasant, hostile, or downright chilling old and lives in Paris. Following on from DANS MA TÊTE, JE conversations with their neighbors, particularly Annabelle M’APPELLE ALICE (Stock, 2012), MAUVAIS JOUEURS (Actes Sud Lecoq and her husband, the blatantly inconsiderate owners junior, 2016), DEUX CIGARETTES DANS LE NOIR (Belfond, of an invasive cat. The cat is the first to go: cold-blooded 2016), LES INDIFFÉRENTS (Belfond, 2018, under option for murder. Its mistress soon follows suit, and all eyes turn audiovisual adaptation), JOLIS, JOLIS MONSTRES is his fifth novel. towards Eva’s depressed and notoriously unstable husband. Eva founders before figuring out that the other neighbors have plenty of secrets of their own. She gets them to confess in order to spring her husband. Along the way, she also manages to blow up their house.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Julia Deck is a copy-editor for various newspapers and magazines. In 2012, her first novel, VIVIANE ELISABETH FAUVILLE was published (20,000 copies sold) to great critical acclaim in France. She is also the author of LE TRIANGLE D'HIVERr (The Winter Triangle), 2014.

14 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Luc Lang LA TENTATION David Lelait-Helo (The Temptation) UN OISEAU DE NUIT À BUCKINGHAM Stock, September 2019, 360 pages (A Nightbird in Buckingham) Anne Carrière, October 2019, 192 pages

◊ English sample chapter available. ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Médicis 2019. A night of magic, based on true facts, a dreamlike and wild digression, an invitation to live life to the full. ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Fémina 2019. ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Wepler 2019. On the morning of June 24th 2016, his mind fuddled with drink, thinking of his boss who fired him and about his wife ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Intérallié 2019. who left him, Paul Scarborough hears on the radio the word ◊ A powerful, disturbing masculine novel about “Brexit”. Dismayed by the news, he understands that the family, transmission, death, evil and the collapse of British have voted for leaving European Union. As his values. country separated from the continent, Paul Scarborough is drifting away. On the windowsill, there’s a plastic figurine... ◊ « A lifelong bibliophile, Macron says he carves out of the Queen. Has he ever thought about her, in the last “one or two hours” a day for reading–essential for forty-five years? In England, the Queen is as inescapable as his well-being, he says. Over the summer, he the fog and five-o’clock tea. There’s something obvious reread books by Albert Camus and polished off the new novel by French writer Luc Lang, among about her, a whiff of eternity. Paul has made his decision, he others. » TheTimes. will talk to her... he just has to wait for the night to fall.

A family’s story of violence; part thriller, part exploration The queen of England, aged ninety, has fallen asleep in her of the origins of evil. room in Buck- ingham Palace, surrounded by her six... stuffed corgis. She wakes up with a start to find a man sitting François - a sporty fifty-something orthopaedic surgeon on her bed. Who is he? What does he want from her? from Lyon - loves game hunting. He loves the fear of his Between two people who are worlds apart, an unexpected prey, the danger and the defilement of it; and, though he dialogue arises. For one night, the queen puts down her wouldn’t admit it, he may also love the power of killing. crown and loosens her tongue. “We all are prisoners”, she When he is about to kill a magnificent stag, François tells this man in fetters. Are we free? Are we chained to our hesitates and injures the animal in the leg. Instead of destiny? Their desultory dialogue mixes emotion and despatching it, he sedates it, hauls it into his pick-up and imagination, verges on surrealism... so British. puts it back together, as he would a patient. When his two children bring danger into the household, which François ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Lelait-Helo wrote many will take the upper hand: the surgeon or the hunter? biographies, wisdom manuals and eight books published byAnne Carrière. In 2018, he co-published with Line Renaud: LINE ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Luc Lang has written a dozen books RENAUD MES ANNÉES LAS VEGAS at Éditions de La Martinière. including MILLE SIX CENTS VENTRES (winner of the Prix Goncourt des lycéens), La Fin des paysages, Mother andAU COMMENCEMENT DU SEPTIÈME JOUR (2016), 50,000 copies sold.

« Le portrait profond d’un contemporain blessé. » Le Point

« En forme d’ingénieux puzzle, le livre est un théâtre où l’intime des personnages se conjugue à la violence de l’époque. » Les Inrocks

« Le récit puissant d’un homme qui renaît de lui-même. » Transfuge

« Récit initiatique mêlant thriller et western. » Télérama

« Un roman d’une sombre beauté. » La Vie

15 CONTEMPORARY Nicolas Fraissinet Louis-Philippe Dalembert DES ÉTOILES DANS LES YEUX MUR MÉDITERRANÉE (Stars in the Eyes) (Mediterranian Wall) Belfond, October 2019, 288 pages Sabine Wespieser, August 2019, 320 pages

◊ An unclassifiable novel that brings together the ◊ Long-listed for the Prix Goncourt 2019. literary, musical and dramatic talents of the author: several different narratives are ◊ The author draws in all subtlety the portrait of superimposed and the reader/listener/spectator is three female characters. Dalembert’s writing is immersed in a unique sensory and musical sharp, generous and at times delightfully funny experiences (QR codes for listening to tracks from despite the human tragedy he puts into light. the album, chapters interspersed with concert ◊ The characters manifest an incredible solidarity scenes that are written and performed as the despite their very different backgrounds. novel unfolds). A grand novel about migration and exil that draws its Elliott is 25 years old and in twelve days’ time, he won’t inspiration from the real tragedy of a boat of migrants be able to see anymore. For the last few weeks, saved by the Danish oil tanker Torm Lotte in 2014. butterflies have been landing where his gaze lands. Morphinae Anaxibia is the name of his incurable disease, On the Libyan coast, at Sabratha, the guards break in the and his entire life is up in the air. How will he carry on warehouse where the women are crammed. Among the with his sculpture classes and see his little brother ones the supervisors molest, Chochana, a Nigerian girl and Hadrien grow up? On the prescription in his pocket given Semhar, from Egypt. That evening, after half an hour in the to him by Dr Mésange, he finds the following message: trolley of the pick-up truck charging at high speed with the ‘Read the stars and follow them. These final days of head-lights off they finally can smell the sea nearby. A little earlier, in Tripoli, a Syrian family, dressed in elegant clothes wakeful alertness could have more meaning than an as if they were leaving on a business trip, settle in the eternity of light spent in slumber.’ climatised bus that has just stop in front of their hotel. This 16th of July 2014, it is finally the great send-off. Dima, her He must seek out gazes as they will be his raw material for husband and two young girls have left the country torn by the rest of his life. And above all his must jot everything war, in order to bord a ship to Lampedusa. down in the little notebook given to him by his best friend Camille, because Elliott cannot afford to miss anything. He is ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Port-au-Prince, Louis-Philippe determined to observe everything around him before Dalembert has published news, poetry, essays and novels in both darkness falls, or will it be a form of illumination? Just 12 France and Haiti since 1993. The last work to date, AVANT QUE days - it is time for his journey to begin. LES OMBRES S'EFFACENT (2017) won the prix Orange du Livre and the prix France Bleu/Page des libraries. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Lausanne in 1980, Nicolas Fraissinet is a Franco-Swiss author, songwriter, pianist and performer. Des étoiles dans les yeux is his first novel and will be published to coincide with the release of his seventh album.

16 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries COMMERCIAL

Jérémie Lefebvre Carène Ponte L'ITALIENNE QUI NE VOULAIT PAS FÊTER VOUS FAITES QUOI POUR NOÊL ? NOËL (What Are You Up To For Christmas?) (The Italian Woman Who Didn’t Want To Celebrate Michel Lafon, November 2019, 300 pages Christmas) Buchet Chastel, October 2019, 240 pages

◊ Under option in: Czech Republic (Omega). A Christmas comedy full of laughs and fairy lights with ◊ In this Italian style comedy, the author explores larger-than-life characters and female friends whom we our relationship to family, love and tradition with great panache. start missing as soon as we finish the book - ideal for reading beside the Christmas tree. ◊ This zany immersion in a modern Sicilian family looks surprisingly like an exploration of our own For Pauline, it was looking like a quiet Christmas this year: neuroses and our own relationships to tradition, her parents have gone on a cruise, and so it was going be belonging, and gastronomy. siestas and ready meals in unicorn pyjamas. But she hadn’t A romantic dare leads Francesca, from Palermo, to reckoned on the office Christmas party which completely refuse to celebrate Christmas with her family. This unexpectedly led to a torrid session in the car park of her exposes the student at the Sorbonne to a series of apartment block with Hervé the HR director on the eve of farcical plot twists secretly orchestrated by different the Christmas break. And when it transpires that this session has been caught on CCTV, trouble swiftly ensues members of her family. and Pauline’s cosy plans for Christmas start to unravel.

Francesca left Palermo to study literature at the Sorbonne. Determined to save her honour and reputation, she is A romantic bet leads her to take a dare: inform her family prepared to do anything to persuade the handsome porter that she won’t be spending Christmas with them, without of her building to destroy the compromising video - even to upsetting or scandalizing them. After all, isn’t her family light the extent of spending a week with his (intrusive) family for years away from clichés about Sicilians, a left-wing the traditional end-of-year festivities. intellectual family of atheists, who respect its members’ individual freedoms? But that would be underestimating the So it’s goodbye to lie-ins and unkempt hair, and hello to a importance of Christmas in Sicily. chalet in the snow and a Christmas tree.

Like the opening scenes of a horror film, Francesca arrives in ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Winner of the Prix e-crire aufeminin, Palermo to a soundtrack of Italian pop music, but without Carène Ponte is the author of UNE MARCI DE TROP, TU AS foreseeing in the slightest the catastrophes that are about to PROMIS QUE TU VIVRAIS POUR MOI, AVEC DES SI ET DES crash over her. While pretending to accept her choice, her PEUT-ÊTRE and D'ICI LÀ, PORTE-TOI BIEN. Her last three mother, father, brother and sister are all doing their utmost novels have sold over 60,000 copies and she is now one of to get her to change her mind… and they have no qualms France’s most bankable authors of feel-good fiction. Her books about using any means necessary. have been translated into German and Italian.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1972, Jérémie Lefebvre is a writer, songwriter and actor. He lives in Paris. His previous novel, AVRIL was published in 2016 by Buchet Chastel and was translated into Italian (Fandango Libri).

17 COMMERCIAL Nathalie Hug François Bourdon EDDIE LA FONTAINE AUX VIOLETTES (An Italian Fairy Tale) (The Violet’s Fountain) Calmann Lévy, March 2020, 240 pages Presses de la Cité, October 2019, 448 pages

◊ The agency does not handle rights in Czech ◊ From 1870 to 1940, four generations of Republic, Poland and Hungary. independent women who follow their passion for perfume. ◊ A modern fairy tale with all the right ingredients: love, magic, unexpected twists with the Italian sun Rosine, the product of a humble rural family, leaves and cuisine as a gorgeous background. Grasse and its legendary violets behind in order to hide ◊ Colourful and picturesque, this would make a her pregnancy. In Paris, she becomes a courtesan and great romantic comedy on screen. rises rapidly in society. ◊ A bright and joyful novel about rewriting one’s life and the power of love. Her daughter Eloïse, who is born in the street, is entrusted to a nanny and ultimately makes a living as a seamstress in What if tomorrow you inherit a villa in Italy? Eddie has Lyon. Eloïse’s daughter Emma is passionate about fashion made her choice: Switching Paris’ grey ceilings for a and design and ends up working for Paul Poiret. Her hats, sunny valley in Emilia Romagna, Switching croissants for which are often adorned with a bouquet of violets, prove to gnocchis and Lambrusco, Switching one-night stands be a great success. Her love affair with an aristocrat killed for… who knows? The great love story? on the front in 1916 results in the birth of Béatrice. Against a backdrop of jazz and surrealism, the free-spirited Emma experiences the Roaring Twenties to the full, hanging out Eddie, 35 years old, lives alone in Montmartre, Paris, in a tiny with Jean Cocteau and stepping out with an American apartment where you have to climb on a chair to glimpse journalist who is a friend of Hemingway. Béatrice, for her part of the Sacré-Coeur’s dome. Orphaned at the age of part, becomes fascinated with the world of perfume, which sixteen, she has built herself a life of detachment and she discovers through the entourage of Coco Chanel. On a invisibility, to keep both misfortune and happiness at bay. trip to Grasse, she discovers the traces of her ancestors at One day, a charming notary announces that she is the sole the Fontaine aux Violettes estate, whose name has been beneficiary of a very old Italian man and the inheritor of a handed down through the family since 1875. She becomes farm in ruins in the Parma region, in Emilia-Romagna. a ‘nose’ in Grasse and falls for a film director at the Studios de la Victorine in Nice. Béatrice ultimately purchases the Although the thought had never crossed her mind before, Fontaine aux Violettes, the place where it all began, and Eddie feels the urge to flee Paris, her monotonous life, and grows flowers for perfumes there. She becomes the first to get to know her roots. And, why not, begin a new life woman in her family to find true happiness… there. Is it a sudden whim or a poker move to seduce the attractive notary? Be that as it may, she decides to fly to Italy ABOUT THE AUTHOR: LE VENT DE L’AUBE, LA COMBE for a weekend that could well last longer… Little does she AUX OLIVIERS, LA MAISON DU CAP and A TRAVERS LA know when setting off to discover this mysterious NUIT ET LE VENT are just some of Françoise Bourdon’s big inheritance and explore the beautiful Italian region, that the successes published by Les Presses de la Cité. course of her life will be turned upside down. And that her shell, as thick as the sarcophagus of an atomic plant, will crack, leading to a nuclear – or romantic – catastrophe…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nathalie Hug, an author and screenwriter, has written three novels (L'ENFANT-RIEN, LA DEMOISELLE DES TIC-TAC, UN, RUE DES PETITS-PAS, all published with Calmann-Lévy) and several novels with her other half, Jérôme Camut. This bright and hopelessly romantic novel marks a radical shift in her career.

18 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Philippe Amar Annabelle Combes LE PETIT ROI DU MONDE LA CALANQUE DE L'AVIATEUR (The Little King of the World) (The Aviator's Cove) Plon, May 2019, 432 pages Héloïse d'Ormesson, August 2019, 384 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Italy (Garzanti, pre-empt), Spain ◊ Moving and poetical, this novel is an elegy to (Grijalbo-Penguin at auction), Germany (Heyne- words and their soothing powers. A hymn to Randomhouse). classical literature, poetry and jazz.

◊ Movie rights sold. ◊ Flirting with the feel-good genre, this novel set in a village by the Atlantic ocean is a delicate story ◊ The perfect beach novel, bursting with humanity about the power of communities to turn their fate and happiness. around. ◊ To write this book, Philippe Amar studied A bewitching tale that depicts the story of Leena, a self- adoption procedures for children who had been made woman who opens up a library and of her long-lost handed over to Social Services, as well as immersing himself in the world of pastry-making brother. These two lost souls, who suffered great losses by taking a 3-month class at Lenôtre School, and and tragedy, slowly find their paths and their way back to finally, meeting with both professional violinists, each other. and students and teachers at a Conservatory. A young teen lives in a foster home. Will he be adopted After their father’s passing, Leena and Jeep go on separate ways in an effort to put themselves back together. Leena, a someday? To find the mother of his dreams, this violin radiant beauty, finds comfort in the silence and the words of fanatic creates a false profile on a dating site, passing the writers she admires. Jeep prefers to become numb with himself off as an adult. Will the destiny he dreams of drugs. The mute woman shows up in a village facing the come true? ocean where she buys an old haberdashery, which she turns into a bookshop. During the restoration process, she finds a Victor, 12 years old, was abandoned at birth by a woman hidden treasure – a collection of airplaine models – that will whose name he has no way of learning. At a very young help her reunite with her missing brother. age, he was placed with “Tata,” a woman who raises him as if he were her own son. Along with his friends David and Meanwhile, Jeep, willing to fill the blank of their family story, José, Victor live a normal life for a boy his age: middle has left for the USA after discovering the letters between school, violin lessons – his true passion – and sessions with his mother and a friend from New York. His journey, at the Maya, his social worker. But Tata’s health is declining, so jazz pace, will take him from New York to Boston up to the when Social Services starts flipping through a “catalogue,” to Canadian frontier where he will reconnect with his Iroquois find new parents for him, Victor decides to take matters roots. into his own hands, and to find himself a “Mom” on his own! ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Annabelle Combes’s first novel,LA GRÂCE DE L'ÉCLAT DE RIRE (Salvator, 2018) won the literary With the help of his, friends, he creates a false profile on a prize of the Rotary Clubs. This is her second novel. dating site. His heart is soon set on “Lily from Les Lilas,” a woman who, in his opinion, would make a perfect mom. But although she’s touched by the boy’s request, Lily, a pastry chef in a 5-star hotel, has absolutely no intention of adopting anyone. …But it would take more than that to discourage Victor! Determined to do everything he can to convince her, he tries out a thousand ploys to achieve his goal...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A TV and movie scriptwriter, in 2013, Philippe Amar’s TOUS LES RÊVES DE MA VIE (Every Dream I’ve Ever Had, currently being adapted for television) was published.

19 COMMERCIAL Lionel Aboo Xavier de Moulins POUR QUE LE JOUR DE VOTRE MORT SOIT LA VIE SANS TOI LE PLUS BEAU DE VOTRE VIE (Life Without You) (So That The Day of Your Death is the Most Beautiful JC Lattès, April 2019, 304 pages Day of your Life) Plon, April 2019, 220 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Italy (De Agostini/Planeta), Serbia (Laguna). The chaotic life of Adolph Goldstein, a thirty-something Love, death, family, betrayal: in the story of this couple’s Jew who became an undertaker out of opportunism, and struggle, everything is true, everything is false, and who gradually drifts towards practices that are ever-less nothing is as it appears. conventional but far more exciting. Exhilarating! Paul and Eva loved each other until their world was shat- Adolph Goldstein, a Jewish man in his 30s, is a successful tered by the accidental death of their eldest son, Stan. Eva businessman. His profession can’t disappear, because he finds refuge in her work in finance, the stock market and deals in death. Someone dies every four seconds in France. fusions/acquisitions. Riddled with guilt and grief, she keeps A real El Dorado!! Up until now,passing away was a taboo up a stoic front for her two daughters. Paul is an artist, a subject, one that didn’t adapt to the free market. But now, painter who has lost his inspiration to the point of putting thanks to Adolph,organizing your own farewell will be as his upcoming exposition in jeopardy, much to the cha- grin normal as planning a wedding. It’s the law of supply and of his agent and best friend, Peter. He owes his survival to demand. Afterall, everybody dies, right? So he’s going to the “talks” he has with his dead son. Even if he has never offer his clients the chance to choose when and how they spoken about it to anyone, he is convinced that Stan is still want toshuffle off this mortal coil. Why fear that ineluctable there by his side. moment, or submit to its will, when you can decide about every single detail about your leave-taking for yourself? The couple manages to stay together for better or worse Choose how to die like you choose how to live. until Eva meets Andreas. With this disconcerting man who seems to un- derstand her better than she understands Buoyed by a mission that he believes is a public service, how herself, she feels reborn and doesn’t imagine for one second far will Adolph go to convince and proselytize? that she might lose everything.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Having started out in production at ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Xavier du Moulins is a journalist and MTV, then moved on to development for Endemol France, he is anchorman of the 7:45 news on M6. Since the publication of QUE now in charge of both the corporation’s and Banijay’s digital TON RÈGNE VIENNE in 2014 with Lattès, he has been activities in France. investigating the mechanisms of modern relationships and family.

20 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Anne Michel Virginie Grimaldi POUR QUELQUES BULLES DE BONHEUR QUAND NOS SOUVENIRS (For a Few Bubbles of Happiness) VIENDRONT DANSER Presses de la Cité, January 2019, 250 pages (When Our Memories Will Come In Dancing) Fayard, May 2019, 360 pages

A beautifully sensitive tale of female friendship... ◊ Rights sold: Italy (Fabbri), Romania (Univers). Sabrina is leading a happy life in sunny Toulon, where the First print run 90.000 copies! restaurant she recently opened with her friends Samuel and ◊ Éric is already doing well. She has adapted to being single, ◊ With humour and emotion, octogenarians embark though she is conscious of her solitude during the long on a crusade to defend their hsitory, memories winter nights spent in the company of her dog Biplan and and to conserve a way of life that belongs to them. her cat Tranxène. Since the tragic accident in which her parents were killed, Sabrina has struggled to let others into ◊ The central couple, Anatole and Marceline, is her heart. And what if the time has come to shake up her quirky and endearing, and shows to the young generations to what point love is at the centre of a gentle routine? relationship and enables to overcome whatever comes their way. Her best friend Capucine is leading a fulfilled existence in Sweden with her husband and three young children. Full of An ageing couple, Marceline and Anatole, both in the life and imagination, she will have to go through a painful their 80s and married for over 60 years, whose life in ordeal, but will come out of it a stronger person. thrown into disarray when the local mayor announces that he wants to purchase all the houses on their cul-de- ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Anne Michel teaches literature in Toulon. POUR QUELQUES BULLES DE BONHEUR is her sac for a redevelopment project. second novel. Rather than acquiesce to his demands, they decide to join forces with their other elderly neighbours - Joséphine,

Marius, Rosalie and Gustave –, who have also lived on the cul-de-sac all their lives, to form an unlikely protest group named “Les Octogéniaux” (“The Octogeniuses”). Aided by their grandson Grégoire, a journalist, and the power of social media, they eventually take their fight all the way to the bright lights of the capital. Yet behind the fun and frivolous image of “Les Octogéniaux” lies a lifetime of often painful truths, which are gradually revealed to the reader through Marceline’s memories, beginning in 1955, when she and Anatole first moved into their house on the cul-de-sac as newlyweds. Nowadays, Marceline is a grumpy old woman who only has time for her patient and genial husband Anatole, but through her memories we understand the reasons behind her problems with her neighbours (in particular her best friend Rosalie), her only daughter

Corinne, and her only grandson Grégoire, which are linked, in large part, to a terrible car accident involving other residents of the cul-de-sac many years earlier. Finally, however, the experience of participating in “Les Octogéniaux” will provide Marceline with the opportunity to forgive and forget, to renew the bonds with her family and neighbours, and to reminisce on 63 years of enduring love, and dancing, with Anatole. A moving hymn to love and life, by an author at the height of her powers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: By now there is little need to introduce Virginie Grimaldi: In 2018 she was the second-highest selling French female author (after Mazarine's Aurélie Valognes), with 674 500 copies sold, and each of her three previous titles with Fayard have been bestsellers.

21 COMMERCIAL Marie-Bernadette Dupuy Marie-Bernadette Dupuy 1. L'ORPHELINE DE MANHATTAN 2. LES LUMIÈRES DE BROADWAY (The Manhattan’s Orphan) (The Lights of Broadway) Calmann Lévy, February 2019, 512 pages Calmann Lévy, May 2019, 512 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Russia (Hemiro), World English Elisabeth’s semblance of serenity is short-lived: an (Hodder). accident turns her destiny upside down and shakes ◊ TOP#20 of the best-selling authors in France everything she once believed in… ◊ A multi-talented writer, Marie-Bernadette Dupuy successfully addresses the most diverse genres 1900. Elisabeth is aboard an ocean liner, carrying her back such as historical biographies, romances, locally- to America. By her side, her fiancé. With affection and based novels, epic family sagas. kindness, he helps her regain her self-confidence and faith in love. A quick wedding between the two lovebirds is A new series, set in New York. celebrated on the boat. But a violent storm breaks out and the young husband disappears at sea. This new stroke of October 1886. Catherine and Guillaume Duquesne set off fate destroys Elisabeth. Only the support and unfailing love for New York with Elisabeth, their six-year-old daughter. of the Woolworths, her adoptive parents, helps her piece Despite Catherine’s parents’ reservations, they decide to herself back together. Newly widowed, the young woman leave France and their little house, full of hope and eager to rediscovers New York. As her gift develops, she senses a start a new life. But the young couple’s dreams of freedom supernatural presence inside the Dakota Building she lives. and independence soon turn into a nightmare. Catherine dies during the journey and, one week after their arrival on Marie-Bernadette Dupuy American soil, Guillaume is assaulted on the street and left 3. LES LARMES DE L'HUDSON for dead. Elisabeth ends up all alone in a vast country. After (The Tears of the Hudson) one night of wandering in Central Park, she is hit by the Calmann Lévy, September 2019, 512 pages carriage of the very wealthy Woolworth family. They bring her home, look after her and decide to adopt her, ignoring the wanted notices sent by her grandfather. Elisabeth grows up spoilt and happy. But when she turns 16, she learns the truth about her upbringing and her life is shattered. She feels betrayed and leaves New York to come back to France and meet her real family. However, she discovers upon her arrival the true face of her grandfather and the secrets hidden in the house... Will Elisabeth manage to distinguish the truth from the lie and finally feel true love from her kin? As New York gradually fades away behind the boat ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marie-Bernadette Dupuy is an taking her back to France, Elisabeth dreams of an extremely prolific author whose sagas full of romance have seduced a wide readership in France and abroad. Her fanclub does impossible happiness. not miss any of her new books, and she writes at least two per year. In France, over 2018 only, her books sold over 500,000 Upon arriving she settles near the family castle, which now copies ! She successfully addresses the most diverse genres such as belongs to Justin, Elisabeth’s grandfather’s natural son. But historical biographies, romances, locally-based novels, epic family the running of the vineyard seems to elude the young man, sagas. so much so that Elisabeth, now 27, decides to take over the reins. She pours all her passion and enthusiasm into the estate. Troubled by Justin, whom she cannot forget and who she refuses to see as an uncle, Elisabeth works tirelessly. Evidently enamoured, the two observe one another, but are held back by this kinship that they begin to doubt. Upon deciding to investigate the circumstances surrounding Justin’s birth, they discover new secrets. As the mysteries shrouding the Laroche family grow thicker, Elisabeth asks herself: will she ever, one day, experience true love?

22 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries

Françoise Bourdin Françoise Bourdin SI LOIN SI PROCHES GRAN PARADISO (So Far, So Close) (Gran Paradiso) Belfond, June 2019, 264 pages Belfond, September 2018, 286 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Russia (Eksmo). ◊ English sample chapter available The follow-up to Lorenzo’s adventures as recounted in ◊ Under option in: Czech Republic. Francoisȩ Bourdin’s previous novel GRAN PARADISO: ◊ Rights sold in: Poland (Dragon). though this book can be read as a sequel, it stands on its own for readers who have yet to read GRAN PARADISO. ◊ 100,000 copies sold. ◊ With over 40 books published, Françoise Bourdin. Lorenzo Delmonte has completely dedicated himself to the She is the 6th bestselling author in France and all wildlife park he has created in the Jura, so much so that the her books have been sold up to 8 million copies. well-being of his animals has taken precedence over his love life - much to the dismay of Julia, his best vet and also his A novel about a man who dreamt of entertaining tigers. ex-fiancée who is secretly hoping for him to have a change of heart. Lorenzo, an attractive thirty-something with a forceful personality, is also a passionate vet. Years earlier his When a friend from his student days invites him to come grandfather bequeathed him some acres of scrubland in the and spend a month on the Samburu reserve in Kenya, Jura and, with respect for the natural world as his guiding Lorenzo seizes this unexpected opportunity to observe wild principle, he has now created an amazing natural park on animals in their natural habitat. For the first time, he takes a this land to bring visitors closer to animals living in the wild. break and leaves the running of the park to his team under However, to make a success of this venture, Lorenzo needs Julia’s supervision. Although his safari introduces him to a to find new sources of funding and so he turns to his father- new facet of his profession and inspires ideas for new in-law Xavier, but the latter is reluctant to help him - the projects, he realises that his inability to express his feelings is two men have always had a stormy relationship, despite the also one of the reasons he came to Kenya in the first place, mediation efforts of the whole family... and now he may have trouble going back... One day Julia, Lorenzo’s childhood sweetheart, reappears in his life and he decides to take her on as a vet. The young woman rekindles feelings in him that he thought were extinct, so much so that he dreams of winning her love again.

This unrequited love is another challenge that Lorenzo has to contend with, along with his stepfamily and the park on which he is expending all his energies. Will this lover of freedom succeed in overcoming all the obstacles before him and making his dreams come true? One thing is certain: he will have to fight if he is to remain master of his own destiny and create his own personal paradise.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: In the space of 20 years, Belfond has published more than 35 books by Françoise Bourdin. They have been translated into English, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, Turkish, Polish and Bulgarian.

23 ROMANCE / EROTICA ROMANCE / EROTICA

Louisa Méonis Emmanuelle Arsan BETTY ANGEL EMMANUELLE 1 Book 1 – Death Becomes Me (La Leçon d’homme) Book 2 – Death Under My Skin Belfond, 1959-2019, 336 pages Book 3 – Death Is My Life Book 4 – Death Goes to the Devil Bragelonne, 60,000 words per book

◊ Rights sold in: USA (Grove), Bulgaria (Trud, reverted), Czech Republic (Argo, reverted), Estonia (Varrak), Finland (Otava), Germany ◊ An experienced and successful author. (Rowohlt), Hungary (Melotrade), Italy (Bompiani), Poland (Foksal, reverted), Russia (Eksmo,

◊ A lively tale that mixes action, romance, and reverted), Spain (Tusquets), South Korea (That humour. Book), Sweden (Lind & Co). ◊ A plus size woman far from romantic clichés. Emmanuelle, which has sold hundreds of thousands of Death has never been so attractive! copies since its initial clandestine publication in France, relates the movement of a woman from an unconscious Betty spent her life as the nice fat girl that everyone took to a profoundly conscious sexuality. advantage of, and her death was just as pathetic: she drowned in her toilet. But her misfortune doesn’t end there, As the story opens, Emmanuelle, 19, is boarding a plane in as she finds herself thrown into a series of terrifying ordeals London to rejoin her husband who is an engineer in that she must endure in order to become a guardian angel. Bangkok. She finds herself powerfully compelled by the So much for eternal rest. Heaven? The biggest scam of all passenger seated beside her, and before she has landed, her time. And one thing is certain: angels are far from angelic. irrepressible sensual nature has begun to open wide vistas of sexual possibility. Once in Bangkok, she moves easily On top of that she becomes the apprentice to the way-too- from the waiting arms of her husband to intimacies with the sexy-to-be-honest Angel of Death, an Adonis whom she wives of his business associates to further explorations and desires like she never desired anyone when she was alive. experiences in which the subtle aesthetics of eroticism are expounded-and enacted-to their fullest. But the height of And if all that isn’t enough, angels start mysteriously her initiations and pleasures, as illicit as they are refined, is disappearing… And Betty senses that these disappearances reached with Mario, her true initiator. This initiation takes are somehow linked to her, and that her “master” hasn’t Emmanuelle to the limits of a joyful eroticism, free of any told her everything. moral or religious considerations that would ruin the appeal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: After the success of her ABOUT THE AUTHOR: contemporary romance series Lola, Louisa Méonis now takes us on a trip into bit-lit with this new series which she has skilfully “Rééditée, elle nous rappelle que cette épopée révolutionnaire packed with love, action, humour, and rotten luck. oeuvra pour la libération sexuelle féminine.” Le Parisien Magazine

“Emmanuelle ce n'est pas du sexe, c'est de l'érotisme vintage, onirique, utopique et tendre, un érotisme optimiste, un érotisme radieux.” lepoint.fr “Libertin et libertaire, hédoniste et joyeux, il fait même, dans ses meilleurs pages, presque figure de manifeste.” Marianne

“Des écrits autrement littéraires et politiquement incorrects que Cinquante Nuances de Grey...” L'Express

24 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries FEEL GOOD

Anne Dauphine Julliand Laure Manel JULES CÉSAR L'EMBARRAS DU CHOIX (Jules Cesar) (The Benefit of the Doubt) Arènes, October 2019, 350 pages Michel Lafon, November 2019, 350 pages

◊ By the Author of Two Small Steps On Wet Sand, A delightful bittersweet comedy which offers profound sold for more than 500,000 copies and licensed in insights into love and life in a relationship. more than 20 languages. Have you already found yourself confronted by choices that ◊ A thoughtful political feel-good novel, WHEN could determine the course of your life? Like, say, OSCAR ET LA DAME ROSE meets LA VIE DEVANT SOI. somebody asking you to marry them? Take the example of Emma. This vivacious woman is at the altar on the point of ◊ The characters are forced to push themselves saying ‘I do’ to Julien. That fateful moment when the entire beyond their limits, overcome their apprehensions congregation is hanging on and draw courage from unexpected sources, before finally coming to understand which one of her words waiting to hear that magic phrase, for better or them really needs saving. for worse. But a tiny hitch in proceedings is enough to sow A coming-of-age novel about childhood, a father-son doubt in the bride’s mind and to suddenly project her into a relationship. Full of emotion. parallel world somewhere between ‘I do’ and ‘I don’t’.

Jules-César is nearly seven. He loves his mum, his brother, Will this inner film of which she is the heroine furnish her his life in Ziguinchor and table football. His life seems simple, with the answer to the vicar’s question? but it isn’t. For the last few years his kidneys haven’t worked, and daily dialysis doesn’t help. Only a transplant might help ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Following the huge success of LA DÉLICATESSE DU HOMARD and LA MÉLANCOLIE DU him get better, but in Senegal, you can’t get a transplant. His KANGOUROU, Laure Manel gave up teaching to devote herself ambitious father, Augustin, is about to take the next step in to writing. his successful career in the biggest telephony company in Senegal. But he is also the only one who can help Jules- César, this sick son who he struggles to relate to, by giving him a kidney. From a sense of duty and love for his wife, much more than for his son, he agrees to take Jules-César to France to save him.

Alternating between the viewpoints of Jules-César and Augustin, Anne-Dauphine Julliand reveals the delicate relationship between a father and his son, their upheaval and experience of having to adapt in a foreign country. They are each forced to push themselves beyond their limits, overcome their apprehensions and draw courage from unexpected sources, before finally coming to understand which one of them really needs saving.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Anne-Dauphine Julliand is a journalist. Since the publication of her first book, DEUX PETITS PAS SUR LE SABLE MOUILLÉ sold in English (Skyhorse) German (Lübbe), Spanish (Temas de Hoy), Italian (Bompiani), Dutch (Lannoo), Portuguese (Porto Editora), Brazilian (Ecclesiae Editora), Russian (Hemiro), Chinese complex (Ping’s Publications), Chinese simplified (Shanghai99), Korean (Open Books), Greek (Psichogios), Hungarian (Kossuth), Japanese (Kodansha), Polish (Drukarnia), Czech (Motto), Romanian (Philobia),Slovenian (Druzina), Turkish (Pegasus) and Vietnamese (Maison des femmes), she has given over 300 conferences and book signing events in France and abroad.

25 FEEL GOOD Ondine Khayat Lorraine Fouchet ÉCOUTE LA PETITE MUSIQUE TOUT CE QUE TU VAS VIVRE DU CLOS DES ANGES (Everything You’re Going to Experience), (Listen to the Soft Music from the Angel’s Cottage) Héloïse d’Ormesson, March 2019, 384 pages Solar, January 2019, 304 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Germany (HoCa). A beautiful novel to help heal the wounds of the ◊ ◊ 15,000 copies sold. past. ◊ Suspense is omnipresent in this story: Who is ◊ A positive and vibrant call to live your life now. Dom’s father’s lover? What happened to his A touching story that teaches us to accept our past, to mother? Other questions arise as you progress free ourselves from the wounds of childhood and to through the book, making it a delightful page- turner. experience the bonds that heal. ◊ From France’s Groix Island to Patagonia, readers At 39 years old, Raphaëlle, a very sensitive painter who has are introduced to powerful, untamed horizons been separated for years, lives completely detached from that reveal the characters’ personalities any form of affection and dedicates all her time to art. She ◊ A tale of love, forgiveness, and resilience, full of has lost contact with her father since 20 years. He had humor and understanding always rejected her and is the reason her mother committed suicide. When she finds out that he has passed ◊ Fans will recognize Lorraine Fouchet’s signature away, all her child wounds rise up again. No longer capable fondness for the importance of family ties, as well of painting, drowned in sorrow and subject to panic attacks, as for Groix Island. Raphaëlle can no longer run from her past. To top it all, she In this new novel full of optimism, Lorraine Fouchet is not finds a letter from her father who bequeaths her with his afraid of the obstacles standing on our way and teaches cottage in Giverny, the famous village of Claude Monet. us how to face them to enjoy each and every moment of What is she going to do with it? Erase everything that has to do with her father or face up to her painful childhood? With joy. the help of her best friend, she decides to make it into a residence for artists. Dom Le Goff, 15 years old, is playing on his computer in the middle of the night when the screen turns off. At the very same time, he hears noises from the corridor and A new life opens up to Raphaëlle as she welcomes Claire, a rushes out of his bedroom only to realize it comes from an teacher, Jacob, a psychotherapist who survived the camps, emergency medical team. His father’s heart stopped beating Helena, a former ballet dancer, Gregory, a young and in his lover’s arms and she vanished right after calling the promising pianist and Paul, the residence’s gardener and paramedics. Trying to pick up the pieces, Dom goes after warden, a close friend of her fathers’ who she feels close to this mysterious woman. Yet, one astonishing news leading and attracted to... In the middle of this caring community to another, the teenager is once more overwhelmed when filled with love, Raphaëlle will slowly open up and start he receives the condolences of a stranger who would have bonding with others. met his parents in Argentina before the birth of their daughter. Except that Dom is an only child! He soon leaves Inside the cottage, she will revisit her past and little by little the island of Groix, in Brittany, to fly across the world, get over her dark thoughts in favour of life, family, friends... seeking for the truth in South America. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ondine Khayat works as a clinical ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1956, Lorraine Fouchet is a psychologist certified in Person-centred therapy. She has written former emergency physician. She is the author of seventeen several self-help works. novels, including ENTRE CIEL ET LOU, published in 2016 and winner of the Brittany Prize and the Ouest Prize. She now lives between the Paris suburb and the island of Groix.

26 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Agnès Martin-Lugand Aurélie Valognes UNE ÉVIDENCE LA CERISE SUR LE GÂTEAU (The Decision) (The Cherry on the Cake) Michel Lafon, March 2019, 360 pages Fayard / Mazarine, March 2019, 420 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Russia (Corpus), Czech Republic ◊ Under option in: Poland (Sonia Draga). (Motto), Romania (Trei), Slovakia (Albatros Media), Bulgaria (Era), Netherlands (Xanders), ◊ Chinese language rights (except Taiwan) sold to Red Dot (China, 3-book deal). Beijing Fonghong Book. ◊ 60,000 copies sold. ◊ Longlisted for the Prix Maison de la Presse. ◊ A reader-friendly novel about admitting our ◊ First print run of 110,000 copies mistakes and facing the consequences of our ◊ Aurélie Valognes is the n°1 feminine author on the irresponsible actions on those we love. podium of best selling authors for 2018. ◊ Britanny, the land of sailors and adventures, of France’s bestselling author Aurélie Valognes gives us a free and passionate people, offers an ideal setting for this tumultuous, down-to-earth and suprising savvy, offbeat portrait of the modern family, story. demonstrating once again her talent as a storyteller.

◊ Breaking the rules of the feel-good, this nove is Brigitte and Bernard are a happy couple in their early 60s also about knowing how to admit our mistakes whose harmony is based on the fact that they lead largely and facing the consequences of our irresponsible actions on those we love. separate lives. Brigitte has recently retired and spends her days enjoying her grandchildren, whilst Bernard is still wholly We discover Reine, an independent single mother who dedicated to his professional pursuits. When Bernard is struggles with letting her 17-year old son leave the nest. forced into retirement against his will, the couple’s In her relationships she experiences an emotional roller- equilibrium, carefully maintained over almost 40 years, is coaster: living true-to-life passionate moments and also thrown squarely off balance. Add into the mix some disruptive neighbours, stressed adult children and rowdy relieved when she finally finds peace. young grandchildren and you have a recipe for disaster! Or perhaps not, as the case may be. Young design consultant Reine lives in Rouen with Noé, the beloved 17 years old son born from a student fling whom A charming and humorous lesson in the benefits of stopping she has raised on her own. With Noé about to fly the nest, and smelling the proverbial roses. Reine understands she needs to reconsider her life. The new clients signed by her agency seem a godsent. Set in ABOUT THE AUTHOR: In 2018, Aurélie Valognes was the Saint Malo, the city of sea merchants and buccaneers, they number one French female author. Her bestselling novels, MÉMÉ are a small up-and-coming company importing exotic spices. DANS LES ORTIES, EN VOITURE, SIMONE ! MINUTE, Reine travels to Brittany to meet Pacôme, all rugged good PAPILLON ! and AU PETIT BONHEUR LA CHANCE!, have won looks and the soul of a traveller, and a mysterious second her millions of readers, in France and abroad, aged 8 to 100. partner who will eventually turn her life upside down.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A big favourite amongst French best- selling authors, Agnès Martin-Lugand has written six novels and has been translated in 33 languages. Her sincerity, simplicity and a unique ability to provoke deep empathy from her readers have won her a cult following and a regular spot at the top of the best- sellers charts. She has sold 2 million books in France alone.

27 FEEL GOOD Clélie Avit Clélie Avit L’EXPÉRIENCE DE LA PLUIE JE SUIS LÀ (The Experience of Rain) (I’m Still Here) Plon, March 2019, 320 pages J-C Lattès, May 2015, 250 pages

◊ 10,000 copies sold. ◊ Full English translation available. ◊ French pocket rights sold. ◊ Rights available in: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech ◊ A luminous novel with endearing characters, at Republic, Latvia, Macedonia, Slovakia once strong and weak, are just flalwed, like anyone. ◊ Rights sold in: Albania (Botime Pegi), Brazil ◊ A sensible approach on autism seen simultaneously (Rocco), China (Chongjing South West China), from the inside by a mother who raises her autistic Denmark (Lindhard og Ringhof), Estonia (Eesti son, and a “normal” man who tries to break the Raamat), Germany (Goldmann/Random House), bubble. Greece (Mamaya), Hungary (Konyvmolykepzo Kiado), Israel (Hakursa), Italy (Mondadori), Korea ◊ The love story between the two main characters (Mirae), Lithuania (Alma), Netherlands (Xanders), creates a bridge between two worlds Norway (Aschehoug), Poland (Sonia Draga), Portugal (2020 Editora), Romania (Rao), Russia ◊ An almost sensorial experience, enabling them to (Sindbad), Serbia (Laguna), Slovenia (Drustvo better understand people with Asperger’s Mohorjeva Druzba), Spain (Ediciones B), Sweden syndrome (Printz Publishing), Taiwan (Emily Publishing), ◊ What makes this novel unique is the way the two Turkey (Koridor), UK (Hodder), US (Grand main characters’ alternating points of view breathe Central), Czech Republic (Metafora). real rhythm into the narration and offer readers an ◊ A wonderful success for a lovely story. Clélie Avit enhanced perception of the events taking place. signs an authentic book where love is stronger than Arthur is 6 years old. He lives with his mother, Camille, in everything, in the same vein as The Fault in Our a bubble she created just for them. That way, the world’s Stars. noise, violence and people can’t reach them. Because the A modern-day Sleeping Beauty story of love and hope, slightest encounter, the slightest touch, if it hasn’t been for fans of Jojo Moyes. anticipated and planned for, could wound them deeply. An outstretched hand, a crowded bus, raindrops on their Elsa has been in a coma for five months. With all hope of skin… The way they are affected by Asperger’s reviving her gone, her family and doctors are having to face syndrome completely cuts them off from the world. the devastating fact that it might be time to turn off her life support... They don’t realise that in the past few weeks Elsa Yet they are surviving, since Camille protects them so well has regained partial consciousness; she knows where she is from others, whom she perceives as a permanent threat. and can hear everyone talking around her bed, but she has One evening, as he’s leaving the office, Aurélien crosses no way of telling them she’s there. Thibault is in the same their path. A sense of something deeply “true” about the hospital visiting his brother, a drunk driver responsible for pair pierces his disillusionment with his own monotonous the deaths of two teenage girls. Thibault’s emotions are in life and its perpetually unsatisfied search for truth. The truth turmoil and, needing a retreat, he finds his way into Elsa’s he so craves, and which had seemed inaccessible to him room. Seeing her lying there so peacefully, he finds it hard until that instant. How can he approach this intensely to believe she is not just sleeping. Thibault begins to visit entwined mother and child pair without breaking their Elsa regularly. As he learns more about her through her fragile equilibrium? And what about them? Are they ready family and friends, he begins to realise that he is developing to try a new experience and let him enter their life? feelings for her. And when he talks to her, he can’t help feeling that she can hear his every word... For Elsa, his visits ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Clélie Avit was born in Auvergne in are like a breath of fresh air. Here is finally someone who 1986. She won the 2015 New Talent award for her first novel, JE speaks to her as if she is a real life person. Who makes her SUIS LÀ (I’m Still Here), published by Éditions JC Lattès. It was a laugh. And who gives her something to fight for... best-seller, both in France – with more than 60,000 fans – and internationally, with 26 foreign translations. She is also the author And so begins a love story that might just save both their of a YA fantasy saga, LES MESSAGERS DES VENTS. lives...

28 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries

BIO & HISTORICAL

Olivier Bellamy Philippe Hayat L'AUTOMNE AVEC BRAHMS OÙ BAT LE CŒUR DU MONDE (Autumn with Brahms) (Where the World's Heart Beats) Buchet Chastel, October 2019, 304 pages Calmann Lévy, August 2019, 440 pages

After UN HIVER AVEC SCHUBERT, Olivier Bellamy ◊ Awarded the Prix Filigranes 2019. guides readers through the work and life of Brahms in ◊ A novel about jazz music and all the genius artists 44 chiseled, well-documented and thoughtful texts. The and musicians who make us swing. most secretive composer of his time will become as familiar as a close relative. ◊ A young boy who became mute finds in jazz a genuine passion that will bring a new voice and way to interect with others. At age 20, and as handsome as a Greek demi-god, Brahms made an encounter that would change both his own life ◊ A story set on Old and New continent, th and the course of music history. When Schumann paid throughout the most tragic times of the 20 tribute to his genius, the young man fell head over heels in century. love with the famous composer’s wife, Clara Schumann, ◊ The book can also be listened thanks to a playlist who was also the greatest pianist of her time. the author has made available here: http://bit.ly/philippehayat! But tragedy arrived on the heels of that epiphany: committed to a mental institution, Schumann passed away. From 1930's French Tunisia to segregationist America, Clara pulled irrevocably away from Brahms, and the fate of through liberated Europe, a magnificient coming-of-age- German music landed squarely on the young man’s novel to the sound of jazz. shoulders. Struck by muteness after witnessing his father’s violent While the art world was obsessed with innovation and death, Darius Zaken grows up in Tunis in the 1930s, raised progress, he stood alone in his determination to prove that by his mother Stella who sacrifices everything to forge him a you could go even further by looking back. Singing the great destiny. As the young boy strives to live up to praises of nature and of his own most inner self, he wrote expectations, a swinging clarinet comes and disturbs the ma- the most perfect and original music conceivable. ternal nest. Darius discovers he has an irresistible gift for this instrument that gives him a voice once more. The possibility ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1961, Olivier Bellamy is a of a new life, brighter and more intense, opens up before reporter at Classica and editor at Le Parisien. He presents an hour him. and a half long daily program in the early evening on Radio Classique. He has written several TV documentaries on musical ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Philippe Hayat shares his time themes. In 2010 he published the first biography ever written on between writing and entrepreneurial activities. His debut novel, Marta Argerich the translation rights of which were sold in ten MOMO DES HALLES (2014), winner of Chambéry’s First Novel territories. Festival, has been translated in several countries. Where the World’s Heart Beats is his second novel.

29 BIO & HISTORICAL Odile Bouhier Marc Petitjean LE BAZAR DE LA CHARITÉ LE CŒUR : FRIDA KHALO À PARIS (The Bazar de la Charité) (Frida Khalo in Paris) Michel Lafon, November 2019, 400 pages Arléa, August 2018, 120 pages

◊ Soon to be a Netflix series! ◊ Rights sold: Spain (Circe), USA (The Other Press). Stolen identities, forbidden love, emancipation: the ◊ In an investigative story, the author paints the flamboyant and outlandish story of three heroines living personal and sensitive portrait of the intrepid in Paris in the age of the Lumierè brothers. Mexican while reviving the colors of the bubbling prewar artistic scene.

Paris, 1897. As the Tout-Paris is gathered at the annual ◊ An incredibly lively and sensitive picture of these Bazar de la Charité Gala, a devastating fire breaks out during pre-war years. a demonstration of the cinematograph, the revolutionary ◊ A book that takes a very good place in the new device by the Lumière brothers. Within minutes, the bibliography of this heroine of modern Mexico. wooden edifice along with its elaborate wall hangings and fabrics is engulfed in flames. 126 people are left dead, mainly « Oscar, a Mexican writer I had never heard of, high-society women accompanied by their ladies-in-waiting, contacted me via the Internet for a meeting. He just said some of them trampled to death by men trying to save it concerned my father. I was intrigued because he died their own skins. more than twenty years ago. Our appointment place at the corner of rue du Temple and rue du Petit-Thouars. The destinies of three women - Adrienne de Lenverpre, That's it, he told me, I found out that your father had a Alice de Jeansin and her maid Rose Rivière - are profoundly altered by the tragedy. They must now seek to reinvent romance with Frida Khalo when she came to Paris in themselves... 1939. I knew she and he knew each other and that she had offered a painting called The Heart, but he had ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Odile Bouhier is a renowned never mentioned any connection with her. » screenwriter and the author of critically acclaimed historical crime novels. She has a thing for Charles Dickens and Donald Ray Thus begins the book of Marc Petitjean. By a first encounter Pollock. that plunges him suddenly into the tumultuous life of Frida Kahlo, engaged artist, nonconformist, bisexual, rediscovered by feminists in the United States and Europe in the 80s, becoming the icon that we know today - but also in the secret areas of his own father's life. Who was this curious Michel Petitjean ? What was the relationship between him and Frida during the few weeks of his stay in Europe, with André Breton, Picasso de Dora Maar, Marcel Duchamp?

And why did she give him this enigmatic and intimate picture ? The mystery of this relationship, like Frida Kahlo's, is so powerful that it crosses the entire book like a light stroke.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Filmmaker and photographer Marc Petitjean directed, among other films, Blessures atomiques and De Hiroshima à Fukushima about Dr. Hida, surviving doctor of the Hiroshima bomb, and Trésor Vivant, about a Japanese kimono painter.

“A superb novel.” La Presse de la Manche

30 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Michelle Tourneur Colin Thibert LA FOLLE ARDEUR TORRENTIUS (A Consuming Passion) (Torrentius) Fayard, September 2019, 240 pages Héloïse d'Ormesson, August 2019, 128 pages

One of art history’s most fascinating eras portrayed ◊ An excellent historic novel that portrays the life of through the intertwining stories of three great artists: the talented Dutch painter Torrentius who was Frédéric Chopin, Eugène Delacroix and George Sand. eager to experience life to the fullest even if it meant being the source of scandals. Three of the great figures of the Romantic era were close ◊ Through a vibrant and subtle portrait of a friends in the decade following 1838. Eugene Delacroix, charismatic character the reader discovers a whose canvases and decorations were ablaze with color, society dominated by a rigorous religious power. Frédéric Chopin who cast a spell over the piano with his ◊ Thanks to Thibert’s life-like and enthralling style, kaleidoscopic compositions, and in the middle, George we are caught in a work that is first and foremost Sand, the admirer, muse, friend and sometime caregiver, a great adventure novel. who at night would take up her pen. Johannes van der Beeck alias Torrentius paints the most Their shared passion, for work and for love, would brave astonishing still life and engraves prodigious pornographic the norms of the day. In Paris, the art world was so small, scenes that he sells on the black market for a fortune. they were bound to spend most of their time together – at But in the austere Haarlem of the 17th century, this family dinner parties, at the theatre, opera, and concerts, flamboyant agitator, incorrigible reveler and insatiable and at glittering social events. fornicator fascinates as much as he disturbs.

But their worlds, and their friendship, would come crashing Torrentius lives an unruly existence. Some would give a lot down with the upheavals of the February Revolution. to neutralize him. A zealous bailiff leads the offensive and brings him to court. Despite the torture, Torrentius refuses ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michelle Tourneur is a novelist and a to retract himself and is condemn for blasphemy. Yet, his screenwriter. Her works with Fayard include LA BEAUTÉ M'ASSASSINE (2013), CRISTAL NOIR(2015) and LA BALLERINE talent brings him the protection of the English crown that QUI RÊVAIT DE LITTÉRATURE (2017). helps him escape. Now settled in the London suburb, the broken artist soon renews with his old demons with little regard for his life, and above all for his art. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1951 in Neuchâtel, Colin Thibert is a writer and a scenarist. For a long time, he practiced the arts of drawing and engraving. He distinguished himself in youth literature and noir fiction, especially by winning the SNCF prize for ROYAL CAMBOUIS in 2002.

31 BIO & HISTORICAL José Frèches Christian Jacq LA PETITE VOLEUSE DE SOIE HOREMHEB (The Mistress of Silk) (The Return of the Light) XO, October 2019, 500 pages XO, October 2019, 550 pages

◊ An incredible novel, in line with The Legend of the ◊ Christian Jacq tells the extraordinary destiny of Jade, where crazy love, sex, court intrigues, the scribe who, alongside Tutankhamun, becomes unwavering friendships and betrayals are mingled. general then pharaoh, preventing Egypt from The first volume of a great series,The Mysteries of China, sinking into chaos. whose ambition is to make the reader discover the The extraordinary destiny of a scribe who became essence of a civilization. pharaoh. In the city of the sun of Akhenaten, Horemheb is a royal Among the many inventions born in China that have scribe, with no particular power. At the death of Akhenaten, changed the destiny of humanity, is silk, which the Chinese thanks to his talents as a strategist, he avoids a civil war tried to jealously guard the manufacturing secret for between the supporters of Aton, the unique God, and the centuries. Until it is leaked beyond the Great Wall! Among followers of the return to tradition. Under the reign of the those is a Chinese princess who fled to find a Prince of the young Tutankhamun, Horemheb was appointed oasis of Khotan, and fell madly in love. In her bodice, well commander-in-chief of an army that no longer exists and hidden, some cocoons and mulberry seeds... that he is reforming. He manages, both by diplomatic and military means, to avoid an invasion of the Hittites, the It is the third century of our era and the Han dynasty will ancestors of the Turks. On the death of Tutankhamun, not survive the disaster that is the loss of this treasure so victim of an Atonian plot, the young widow of the latter carefully kept until then... tries to sell the country to the Hittites. Horemheb prevents disaster by removing the Hittite prince who came to marry ABOUT THE AUTHOR: José Frèches' books sold 1.6 million the traitor. copies in France and are translated into 23 languages. It is not he who succeeds Tutankhamun, to whom he was always loyal, but Aÿ, an old courtier, whose program is to do nothing. Four years of immobility and degradation. At the death of Aÿ, Horemheb, whose first wife was the victim of an attack, finally becomes pharaoh. He is fortunate enough to marry a remarkable Great Royal Wife, who has the same sense of the state as he does. Horemheb constantly fights against the Azeri party that wants to regain power and that will stop at nothing to achieve it. He will nevertheless manage to overcome these plots and jolts in the end.

Author of religious, economic and social reforms, Horemheb reestablished a golden age, as testified by his tomb of the Valley of the Kings. Married with a remarkable Great Royal Wife, Horemheb will have no other child than Egypt and will open his country to the dynasty of Ramses.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Christian Jacq, declared one day that his greatest happiness was to write on the banks of the Nile... A beautiful summary of a passion that took him over very young, after he discovers Egypt aged thirteen, through his readings. Four years later, he goes to the country of the Pharaohs for the first time. Egypt and writing then settle for good in his life. After studying Philosophy and Classics, he obtained a PhD in Egyptian Studies. His essay Great Pharaohs of Egypt was awarded by the French Academy. His novels, from Champollion the Egyptian to Ramses arouse the passion of readers, in France and abroad. Christian Jacq is now translated into 29 languages.

32 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Henri Loevenbruck Olivier Merle LE LOUP DES CORDELIERS LIBRE D’AIMER (The Wolf of the Cordelier) (Free to Love) XO, October2019, 600 pages XO Editions, January 2019, 464 pages

◊ Two complementary female characters, who grow ◊ A dive into the mysterious backstage of The and evolve over the course of the novel: Thérèse, French Revolution... a seemingly liberated aristocrat, who actually still ◊ Murders, plots, secret societies... needs to throw off her chains; and Esther, a young Jewish woman, who turns out to be strong and ◊ Between criminal investigation and great History, independent. this first volume of a great historical saga is a novel as breathtaking as exciting. ◊ The high-voltage context, the Nazi Occupation of France, is well-rendered, creating all sorts of A higly documented detective story set during the French obstacles to these two women’s desire to love reolution and planned to be developped into a trilogy. each other. ◊ Women’s freedom is the novel’s central theme, May 1789, a wind of revolt blows in Paris. Gabriel Joly, both during that particularly dark period for a brilliant young provincial, goes to the capital where he Jewish woman and for an aristocratic woman dreams of becoming the greatest journalist of his time. His worried about making waves, and in our own era, first challenge: to unmask the Wolf of the Cordeliers, this as readers can’t help wondering to what extent terrifying vigilante who, at night holds a wolf on a leash and things have really changed in today’s society. commits bloody murders to protect women in the streets of Paris... A burning passion between two women during the Second World War. A hymn to freedom, against all His investigations lead Gabriel Joly on the trail of the great oppressions actors of the just-starting Revolution: Danton, Desmoulins, Mirabeau, Robespierre, but also the mysterious Théroigne July 1942. Her name is Esther, she is twenty years old and de Méricourt and the Masonic lodge of the Nine Sisters... she is a Jew. Her parents have been arrested so she wanders the streets in Paris, lost and terrified. While having On July 14, while a man discreetly escapes from the Bastille, a rest on a bench, her eyes meet those of an elegant lady, the same day it capitulates, will Gabriel Joly discover the older than her and who smokes long cigarettes on a café true identity of the Wolf of the Cordeliers, and reveal one terrace. Esther does not know it yet, but her soon-to-be of the largest plots of the French Revolution? encounter with Therese Duval, wife of a violent and cynical man collaborating with the Germans, will turn her life upside ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Henri Lœvenbruck (born in 1972) is down. The birth of an irresistible desire, on a background of a French writer, singer and composer. An author of thrillers, tragedy. Forbidden love between two women carried away adventures and fantasy, his work is translated in more than fifteen by a burning passion. The two women find shelter in Dinard languages. As a singer-songwriter, he writes songs for himself and and under a sky full of allied bombs, will have to decide other French artists. their fate: part ways and try to survive or accept to die for love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: As a writer and University Professor, Oliver Merle has written several historical novels and lives in the Auvergne region. He won the Charles-Exbrayat Award in 2013.

“A powerful book about forbidden love! Tender, moving & audacious!” Le Parisien Week-end

“Each scene plays with glances & pretenses.” Le Figaro Littéraire « […] L’histoire audacieuse de deux femmes qui s’aiment pendant l’Occupation.[…] Une leçon de courage et de persévérance. » La Montagne

33 BIO & HISTORICAL Camille de Peretti Pascal Janovjak LE SANG DES MIRABELLES LE ZOO DE ROME (The Blood Of The Mirabelles) (Rome Zoo) Calmann Levy, March 2019, 342 pages Actes Sud, April 2019, 256 pages

◊ The names and expressions will carry readers ◊ Rights sold: Italy (Casagrande), Germany (Lenos). away, immersing them into the the heart of the Middle Ages. ◊ A fascinating historical exploration of the Rome zoo, packed with fun facts and anecdotes ◊ This story of the lives of two women during throughout history, wars, politics, fashion and turbulent times show how little power women ideas. had, and how these two still tried to control their own fate. ◊ The author stages with a sweet irony and a real tenderness, a gallery of characters all linked to the ◊ The well-developed characters have real zoo for the best and the worst. substance granting depth to the tale. Through a century of existence of the zoo of Rome, Navigating with delight between the chivalric and courtly Pascal Janovjak tells the evolution of our relationship with novel, Camille de Peretti plunges the reader into animals, taking us into the alleys of a now controversial Medieval Times, with all its habits and customs, place, which remains a place of wonder for children, but alongside two sisters on a quest for emancipation. A disturbing for adults. magnificent exercise in style. Inaugurated in 1911, the Rome zoo owes its architectural Eléonore is sixteen years old. In order to ensure protection distinctiveness to the boldness of Hagenbeck. First and for herself and her little sister Adélaïde, and the foremost a merchant, he supplied circuses and zoos with preservation of the family lands while their father is in the wild animals. But Hagenbeck was also one of the first Holy Land with the King, she is married off to Lord Ours. champions of training animals humanely and of zoos without The sisters discover the new life that has become their own. cages. It was from this perspective that he conceived of a As a Lord’s wife, for Eléonore, forced into silent observation new approach to zoological parks in general and to the zoo and devoted to procreation. And as a lady’s companion for of Rome in particular. In this book, the reader is immersed Adélaïde, spending her days sewing and reading psalms, in the history of this extraordinary garden which takes in the under the supervision of Cathaud, Lord Ours’ austere sister. story of Raffaele de Vico, the architect who created an However, brought up with a certain amount of freedom, aviary reminiscent of an observatory, a Swiss sculptor of neither sister is ready to settle for such an existence. Both genius who was half- mad, Mussolini and his pet lioness, the find a different form of escape – Eléonore in the arms of a pope, and the writer Salman Rushdie, as well as a host of minstrel, with whom she discovers true love and makes other characters. The reader is also introduced to a man plans to run away, and Adelaïde in an apothecary’s and a woman who were destined to meet each other: teachings, with whom she learns about anatomy and the art Giovanna, who has been in charge of marketing at the zoo of preparing remedies. A quest for freedom that is not since 2010, and Chahine, an architect who gives up his day without danger, at a time when trials for heresy are job after being drawn by the strangeness of the buildings commonplace... which connects with his own eventful past.

Camille de Peretti continues in her vast project exploring ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1975 in Basel of a French literary genres with this new novel. After trying her hand at mother and a Slovakian father, Pascal Janovjak studied comparative autobiographies or the epi tolary novel, she now tackles the literature and art history in Strasbourg and then departed to the historical novel, enthralling and joyful, delivering a rich tale in Middle East, first to Jordan as a development aid volunteer and both form and detail. then to Lebanon, where he teaches literature at the University of Tripoli. His books include COLÉOPTÈRES, RECUEIL DE POÈMES EN PROSE (Samizdat, Geneva, 2007), L’INVISIBLE, ROMAN ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Camille de Peretti was born in 1980 (Buchet-Chastel, Paris, 2009) and À TOI, RÉCITS CROISÉS with in Paris. She has written six novels, including THORNYTORINX Kim Thuy (Liana Levi, Paris, 2011), which has been translated into (awarded the Prix du Premier Roman de Chambéry for debut Slovakian, Serbian and Romanian. novels) and BLONDE À FORTE POITRINE (Kero, 2016).

34 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries THRILLER

Nicolas Beuglet Jérôme Loubry L'ÎLE DU DIABLE LES REFUGES (The Devil’s Island) (The Refuges) XO, September 2019, 320 pages Calmann Lévy, September 2019, 396 pages

◊ Under option in: Czech Republic & Slovakia ◊ The agency does not handle rights in Czech (Albatros). Republic, Poland and Hungary.

◊ A spine-chilling thriller that exhumes a horrifying ◊ Paperback rights are sold to Le Livre de Poche. unknown event from the depths of history and A story that dwells the themes of childhood and poses an intriguing question: how much, for better ◊ past wounds, very ambitious by its narrative or worse, do our ancestors live on in us? construction. Revenge is a matter of memory. After LE CRI and A psychological thriller structured like a game of Russian- COMPLOT (470,000 copies sold altogether) this is the dolls… that reads straight through, keeping you in third volume of the trilogy featuring inspector Sarah suspense, with an unexpected twist at the end. Geringen. Sandrine, a journalist in Normandy, learns of the death of The body covered with a strange white powder… the her grandmother, Suzanne, whom she never knew. extremities gangrenous… According to her mother, Suzanne was crazy and lived on an island that nobody could persuade her to leave. Sandrine A face frozen in a grimace of pain… Sarah Geringën is makes her way to the grey and cold island, off the Channel gripped with horror when she sees her father’s body. And coast and discovers a handful of inhabitants who had settled is paralysed with fear when the pathologist gives her the key there at the end of WWII. Most inhabitants arrived on the found in his stomach. What if her father was not the man island in 1946, to work on a holiday camp for children. The he seemed to be? camp closed just following a terrible accident that killed all the children, but neither Suzanne nor the other employees From murky Norwegian forests to icy Siberian plains, the ever left. Sandrine realises that the inhabitants are hiding a former special forces inspector goes on a journey to secret, terrified of something or someone that seems to be confront a terrifying family secret. What will she discover in preventing them from leaving, as though they were that old manor house isolated in the woods? Will she dare prisoners... Sandrine understands that she too could well be venture onto Devil’s Island? the victim of this threat, of this Erlkönig from Goethe’s poem that they all talk about. The one who seems to ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nicolas Beuglet is an author and orchestrate all the island’s woes. A few days later, Sandrine scriptwriter. His two previous novels have sold over 470, 000 is found wandering a beach on the mainland, her clothes copies to date (hardback and paperback). covered in blood, mumbling fragments of memories about her experience on the island. The police takes charge of the investigation, faced with a story that makes no sense: no island ever hosted such holiday camp, and the people Sandrine describes appear to have never existed. Only one name mirrors a real person, an old farmer Sandrine interviewed before learning of her grandmother’s death... To understand the truth, Lieutenant Damien Bouchard will have to explore Sandrine’s memories, at the risk of intermingling his own...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jérôme Loubry wrote LES CHIENS DE DÉTROIT (25.000 copies sold), and LE DOUZIÈME CHAPITRE. “A crazy and stunning book, devilishly well-constructed, where the reader goes from surprise to surprise, and from astonishment to nightmare.” Fnac Rosny

35 THRILLER Fabrice Papillon Bertil Scali & Raphael de Andreis RÉGRESSION AIR (Regression) (Air) Belfond, October 2019, 480 pages Michel Lafon, August 2019, 320 pages

◊ By the author of LE DERNIER HYVER, winner of ◊ An eco-thriller speculating on a future that the Points reader’s prize for best crime novel of somewhat seems quite close to home. 2019. In the face of the environmental threat, democracy has ◊ In the course of this highly original manhunt, the failed and the hour of dictatorship has arrived. reader crosses the ages, meeting the poet Homer, Socrates and his disciple Plato, Jesus and his disciple Peter, Rabelais, Rousseau and the My name is Samuel Bourget. I was born in 1969. The world terrifying Heinrich Himmler... full of hope that my parents bequeathed me has been annihilated and virtually nothing remains of my childhood. I ◊ A formidable and wild enemy who is an excellent myself have contributed to the slaughter. Men have been swimmer and an exceptional runner. The initial tried and sentenced for their role in the ecological genocide forensic analyses are staggering: the DNA of the – the ‘ecocide’ in the words of the judges – that was murderer is not completely human... shaping up and which fortunately managed to be avoided. 36,000 BC. A prehistoric family is holding out against the Others have risen through the ranks of the new order on cold in a cave. All of a sudden a bunch of slender men account of their commitment to environmentalism. In my appear and massacre the parents, whom they see as view, it was nothing less than a dictatorship. Much later, the ‘monsters’. Fascinated by the light skin and blue eyes of the revelations about the excesses of the AIR unit brought son, the only survivor of his species, the killers spare him down the regime. At their trial, the green leaders claimed to and take him off with them. February 2020, Corsica. have saved humanity. That may be the case, but at what Vannina Aquaviva wakes with a start from a nightmare. Ever price? since childhood, she can foresee the death of those close to her.Vannina is a gendarmerie captain. Together with her At the time, you were well advised to keep out of their colleagues, she discovers a slaughterhouse. Among the firing line. That was the case with me. They added me to remains strewn across the floor of the cave is a thorax out the blacklist, the carbon list, and I fled. of which the heart has been ripped and a severed skull containing a cooked brain... Meanwhile, the police find the ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bertil Scali, a writer and reporter, is missing heart at a famous prehistoric site on the island, as if the author of the bestseller published by Michel Lafon and it were an offering to ancestral warriors... translated into 14 languages: HITLER, MON VOISIN.

The situation rapidly spirals out of control: similar crime Raphaël de Andreis runs the French operations of a leading public relations company. They both have a house in Aveyron and have scenes are discovered at other prehistoric sites in Spain, at known each other since childhood. Stonehenge in England and even in Germany, all corresponding to very precise GPS coordinates.

What is this creature with amazing abilities that they are hunting in vain? Where does it come from? What manipulations have created this enigmatic being? The investigation turns to Russia, its research laboratories, its former gulags and the former ‘clean-up’ staff at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Fabrice Papillon has worked as a science journalist for twenty years and has produced numerous documentaries. He has published eight popular science books in collaboration with leading scientists such as Axel Kahn. A historian and philosopher by training, with this edifying and consummately handled thriller he returns to his first loves, blending history, philosophy and the very latest scientific discoveries. REGRESSION is his second novel.

36 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Niko Tackian Johana Gustawsson AVALANCHE HOTEL SÅNG Calmann Lévy, janvier 2019, 270 pages (Blood) Bragelonne, November 2019, 300 pages

◊ The agency does not handle rights in Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. ◊ Under option in: Poland (Swiat Kziaski). ◊ Rights sold in: Russia (AST), Slovakia (Albatros ◊ Full English translation available. Media). ◊ Rights sold in: UK (Orenda Books), Spain ◊ French sales: !Audiobook (Audiolib) Paperback (Le (Navona). Livre de Poche) Book-Club (Le Grand Livre du

Mois) ◊ A highly documented novel, anchored in social and political reality. ◊ Option on TV series adaptation: Fontaram (6x52 min’). ◊ A lively narrative that switches between contemporary investigation and past deeds. ◊ Graphic novel adaptation rights sold to Soleil. ◊ A psychological dimension that subtly exposes ◊ The detective story actually hides a novel about how the roots of evil lie in family transmission. family secrets and a man’s quest for his true identity. Are we predestined by our heritage, or are we free to ◊ A spellbinding structure that alternates effectively become who we really are? between reality and the hero’s unstable mind and memory. A family is murdered in Sweden in their luxurious home. A hypnotic new thriller, somewhere between Stephen The horrible crime brings Aliénor Lindbergh, a young King’s The Shining and Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne. woman with Asperger’s syndrome who has just joined Scotland Yard as an analyst, back to her native land. The victims were her parents. Along with her friend Alexis January 1980. A man wakes up in a bedroom in the Castells, a writer who specialises in serial crimes, the profiler Avalanche Hotel, a luxurious resort located in the heights of Emily Roy meets up with her protégée in Falkenberg, where Montreux, Switzerland. He cannot remember his name, nor police captain Bergström’s team is leading the investigation. how he got there. Gradually, his memories return: his name Together they follow leads left by the killer that take them is Joshua Auberson, he is a security guard, and a young girl, all the way back to the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, Catherine Alexander, has mysteriously disappeared. But is a time when General Franco bloodily crushed any any of it real? January 2018. Joshua Auberson wakes up in resistance. hospital. He was investigating an unknown person, discovered in the mountains, when he was caught up in an ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Johana Gustawsson, a Frenchwoman avalanche and remained in a coma for several days. Despite of Catalan stock, is a political science graduate fascinated by family the confusion reigning in his mind, the puzzle starts to click ties. She lives in London with her Swedish husband and their back into place, piece by piece. He is a police lieutenant and children. Her novels Block 46 and Mör have been translated into no young girl has disappeared. The hotel scene was merely several languages and are currently being adapted as television a construct of his mind in reaction to the trauma he had just series. experienced. Convinced that what he saw in his coma was more than a simple manifestation of his subconscious, “Johana Gustawsson has established herself as an Joshua decides to look into the now abandoned hotel from outstanding international thriller writer. Her new novel is a his dream. But how can you unravel the mysteries of a hit.” Bruno Lamarque – Librairie de la Renaissance highly secretive building when your memory fails you, and you are no longer sure about your own past?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in 1973, Niko Tackian is a French screenwriter, director and novelist. His first novel, published in 2015, received the libraries’ people’s choice Thriller Award at the Cognac Thriller Festival, bestowed by 80 readers. Toxic has been shortlisted for the Polar de Cognac literary award 2017. He lives in Paris.

“Niko Tackian explores for us the complexity and windings of the human memory in this crazy-paced crime novel, very well- documented and filled with many plot twists. You will shiver, and not just with cold...” Page des libraires 37 THRILLER Johana Gustawsson Johana Gustawsson MÖR BLOCK 46 (Mor) (Block 46) Bragelonne, March 2017, 75,000 words Bragelonne, October 2015, 227 pages

◊ Full English translation available. ◊ Full English translation available. ◊ Rights sold in: UK (Orenda Books), Czech Republic ◊ Rights sold in: Czech Republic (Vikend), UK! (Vikend). (Orenda Books), Italy (La Corte), !Brazil (Darkside), Poland (Swiat Kziaski), Spain, Taiwan, Romania. ◊ A grisly new challenge for our favourite duo of female investigators! ◊ TV show under developpment. ◊ A sombre and blood-soaked thriller that echoes ◊ Prix Nouvelle Plume d’argent 2016. with the ghosts of late 19th-century London. ◊ Dark, raw thriller that leads us on the trail of Nazi ◊ A female-driven novel in which all women, from the monsters who took refuge in Scandinavia. angel to the devil, face adversity . ◊ A well-documented, masterfully executed detective ◊ Brisk and brilliant narration that turns on a series novel, very much in the same vein as MILLENIUM. of breath-taking twists. ◊ A duo of female investigators consumed by their Torvsjön, 16 July 2015. The dismembered body of a fascination for serial killers. An investigation led by woman, minus several pounds of flesh, is found on the two strong and mysterious women who make their shores of a Swedish lake. male counterparts feel uncomfortable. 2014: London is being terrorized by a serial killer who is London. The profiler Emily Roy is called to a crime scene. An actress has been abducted and her shoes have been leaving mutilated bodies of little boys all over the city. found nearby, neatly wrapped in a freezer bag. These two crimes bear all the hallmarks of Richard Hemfield, the Emily Roy, a brilliant profiler with an icy personal manner, is “Terror of Tower Hamlets”. But for the past decade he has taken aback when she finds out that a woman’s body with been in the high-security Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, the same mutilations has been found in Sweden. Convinced serving a life sentence for the murder of six women. So that they are dealing with a sociopathic duo, Emily leads the how could he possibly be linked to these latest crimes?The investigation with the help of a French writer, Alexis Castels. tracking down of a voracious and terrifying killer, plunging us In addition to being specialized in serial killers, Alexis is also into the labyrinth of a perverse mind that harks back to the an old friend of the Swedish victim. The two women delve ill-famed streets of Victorian London. into the tortured psyche of the two killers whose profile gradually emerges: a father and son, the older man is a Johana Gustawsson was born in Marseille and now lives death-camp survivor suffering from Stockholm syndrome. in London with her husband and son. BLOCK 46, her first novel, Unless he is a front for a Nazi scientist who is intent on was a rapid success and has been translated into several languages. continuing his experiments. Johana combines passion for history with fascination for the complexity of family ties. She delves into the roots of evil to Johana Gustawson presents the first Emily Roy-Alexis explore it in all its ramifications. Castells investigation. With a dark and chilling atmosphere, this psychological and historical thriller has a truly “Johana Gustawsson has taken the thriller into a new unexpected ending. dimension. Her subtle and surprising novels are the fruit of an immense talent.” Karen Sullivan, Orenda Books ”An audacious writer, brimming with talent.” R.J. Ellory

38 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Sophie Endelys Laurent Philipparie LES GARDIENNES DU SILENCE LECTIO LETALIS (The Guardians of Silence) (Lectio Letalis) Presses de la Cité, October 2019, 392 pages Belfond, January 2019, 368 pages

◊ A successful mix of a domestic thriller, feminist ◊ A cop for eighteen years, Laurent Philipparie has noir novel and historical investigation around a always preferred the field to office work and his lsot manuscript. knowledge of the trade is an inexhaustible source of inspiration. ◊ A sensitive, charismatic and smart main female character. ◊ From the first pages, the author plunges us into a multi-faceted affair. Chloé, an archivist and bibliographer, has developed a passionate interest in a curious ancient manuscript found ◊ Thanks to a skilful construction where action and in the family home. reflection alternate, the reader is taken in this page turner.

She has just killed her husband because he beat her ◊ The characters are complex, each fighting their constantly, so on his boat at sea, she shot him. She then demons making them all the more credible and flees away to the Scandinavian island of Heldenskøn where endearing. her father, a famous author full of secrets, had been born It seems scarcely credible that a book and a bird could and raised. There, she discovers a far-flung monastery on the moors. She settles into a seemingly cosy pension run by kill, but in the hands of police chief Laurent Philipparie Grégoire, an enigmatic professor. the story becomes frighteningly plausible.

At first, she feels safe with this new life in a new town. But Paris. A newly recruited assistant editor slits his wrists on then, she becomes beset with doubts. Is she really safe? Is reading the first manuscript which is entrusted to him. It is her husband really dead? Sleepless nights drive her to find the third time in the space of a few weeks that the same out more about the old manuscript. According to this suicide scenario has been played out at this publishing ancient book, there has been a secret society of mute house. women living underground for centuries, right here on the Island. These librarians would have been tasked with Bordeaux. Lieutenant Gabriel Barrias, a former informer guarding all humanity’s knowledge and secrets for all turned cop, is investigating the unusual death of a eternity. Does such a society exist? What if the manuscript psychiatrist killed by a bird of prey in the middle of a wanted Chloé to take it back to where it belongs? And… consultation at his surgery. why is Grégoire so interested in the book? The two affairs seem completely unconnected, and yet one With a sense of being threatened and pursued in this name common to both crops up: Anna Jeanson, who ten atmosphere of mists and secrets, is Chloé willing to see her years earlier was the only survivor of a mass suicide within a quest for truth through to its conclusion? sect that had trained up animals to kill.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:: Born in Paris and currently resident ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A graduate in criminal justice, Laurent in Normandy, Sophie Endelys is a magistrate when she is not Philipparie has been a police officer for eighteen years. A big fan of devoting her time to writing. LES GARDIENNES DU SILENCE is crime literature, he also works as a technical consultant to authors her third novel. and gives talks in schools. He turned to writing novels himself in 2016.

39 THRILLER Bernard Minier Karine Giebel M, LE BORD DE L'ABÎME DE FORCE (M, The Edge Of The Abyss) (By Force) XO, March 2019, 576 pages Belfond, March 2016, 528 pages

◊ Rights not available in: Czech Republic, Latvia, English sample available. Poland, Slovakia. ◊ ◊ 100.000 copies sold. ◊ A dizzying and fascinating thriller unlike any other!. ◊ ‘An anxiety-inducing atmosphere, engaging heroes who ◊ An absolutely contemporary, mind-blowing novel are not necessarily what they seem to be, and a showing paranoia, manipulation, the impossibility denouement far removed from a happy ending. of hiding! in the modern world, the end of private life with the all-out development of Big Data and ◊ An explosive cocktail, and yet another triumph for this people becoming more and more technologically multiple award-winning thriller writer, two of whose novels connected. are being adapted for the screen. ◊ Bernard Minier: 6 novels, 2,7 million copies sold in A psychological thriller which keeps us on tenterhooks as France, translated in 21 languages. we try to figure out exactly who is manipulating whom... Welcome to hong kong! in the most secret company in the world! At m... At the edge of the abyss... Welcome to One summer’s evening, Maud Reynier, a young woman of 20 and the daughter of the famous Nice surgeon Armand the darkest scenario. Reynier, is violently attacked while she is out walking along the banks of the River Siagne. A passing jogger, Luc, arrives Why does Moïra, a young French girl, find herself in Hong in the nick of time to scare off the attacker and to save Kong, at Ming, the Chinese digital giant? Why, from the first Maud. A few days later, Armand Reynier receives a night, is she approached by the police? Why does the threatening message. Deeply disturbed by it, he calls on Luc, Center, the ultramodern headquarters of Ming, hide so who is a professional bodyguard, to provide them with many secrets? Why does Moïra feel constantly followed and protection. Luc soon begins to realise that everybody in this spied on? Why are violent deaths increasing among the family has something to hide... Center employees - murders, accidents, suicides? “Amid a swirl of suspicions and theories and false leads, the While she is just starting her mission at Ming, Moïra reader is gripped by the story from beginning to end, without becomes convinced that the truth that awaits her at the end being able to ascertain the truth before the explosive finale.” of the night will be more frightening than the most terrifying Le Matricule des anges nightmares. “An extraordinary psychological thriller.” France Dimanche A novel about a world under construction, our world, where the power of technology and artificial intelligence ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Karine Giébel has published authorizes the darkest scenarios. numerous crime novels, including

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bernard Minier was born in Béziers in - LES MORSURES DE L’OMBRE, 2007, 170,000 copies sold, rights 1960 and grew up in the Southwestern France. He now lives near sold in: Korea (Balgeunsesang), Germany (Berlin Verlag), Spain Paris and writes full-time. Published, in 2011 his first novel, The (Circulo de lectoras), Italy (Rizzoli), Netherlands (Uitgevers), Frozen dead (GLACÉ) marks the beginning of the investigations of Turkey (Pegasus), Ukraine (Family Leisure Club); Martin Servaz and was adapted in TV series currently available worldwide on netflix. The success of his ensuing 6 novels have - JUSTE UNE OMBRE, 2012, 250,000 copies sold, rights sold in: made him an essential French thriller author. Korea (Balgeunsesang), Turkey (Pegasus), Germany (Berlin Verlag), Hungary (Kiado), Poland (Sonia Draga), Czech Republic (Jota), Vietnam (Maison d’édition des femmes)

- JUSQU’À CE QUE LA MORT NOUS UNISSE, 2009, 155,000 copies sold, rights sold in: Korea (Balgeunsesang)

- PURGATOIRE DES INNOCENTS, 2013, 150,000 copies sold, rights sold in: Korea (Balgeunsesang), Turkey (Pegasus), Poland (Sonia Draga), Japan (Take Shobo)

40 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Olivier Norek Olivier Norek SURFACE THE CAPITAINE COSTE TRILOGY (Surface) 1. Code 93 Michel Lafon, April 2019, 380 pages 2. Territoires (Turfs) 3. Surtensions (High Voltage) Michel Lafon, 2013-2016

◊ Rights sold in: WE (MacLehose Press), Germany (Blessing), Lithuania (Baltos Lankos), Sweden (Sekwa). ◊ Rights sold as 3-book deal: Spain (Grijalbo:PRH), ◊ 40,000 copies sold. Czech Republic (Prah), WE (Quercus MacLehose Press), Russia (Eksmo), Poland (Wam / Mando), The new big name in French crime fiction is back. Germany (Blessing), Italy (Rizzoli), (WAM), Greece (Pedio).

A Paris banlieue. Early morning. A police operation goes ◊ TV adaptation rights sold to Kwai Productions. wrong. Captain Noémie Chastain is shot in the head. She Winner of the European thriller award 2016 Quai will survive, disfigured, a living reminder of the ◊ du polar & le Point. dangerousness of their job for her colleagues. ◊ Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle. Months later in Avalone, rural France, the tiniest and ◊ Code 93: 120.000 copies sold quietest precinct in the country, where Noémie has been sent - hidden away in her opinion - to complete her ◊ Territoires 70.000 copies sold recovery. Her secret brief: write a report to support the ◊ Surtensions 90.000 copies sold closure of the local police station. ◊ The author is a former police officer. He uses his 17 One morning, a keg is found floating in the lake overlooked years of experience and brings an insider’s view on by the village. Inside it, the body of a child gone missing 25 investigations. years ago… ◊ The reader will be both delighted and surprised by the outcome of an addictive plot. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Olivier Norek is a lieutenant in Greater Paris police investigation Bureau with 18 years’ ◊ A realistic writing style, dense story and a beautiful experience. He is the author of four widely acclaimed best-selling love story. thrillers, all published by Editions Michel Lafon, and winner of several prestigious literary prizes including the Grand prix des ◊ This story can be read separatedly from the two lectrices de ELLE and the Prix du Polar Européen Le Point. first volumes of the trilogy! Olivier Norek’s best-selling and multi-award winning Crime trilogy about the Captain Coste’s investigations,

“A cinematographic epic.” Le Monde

“A book that bowls you over. A perfectly mastered first thriller.” Le Figaro Littéraire (‘coup de cœur’ of the year)

“Lively. Intelligent. Striking. Sincere. Everyone is talking about it...” Femmes d’Aujourd’hui

“A master of thriller-writing.” Elle “A terrific page-turner that pulls no punches.” Librairie Mollat

“An astonishingly realistic storyline, meticulous dialogue and sense of dramatisation. Let’s hope he reoffends!” L’Express

“Really good writing. Really good crafting. Really good thriller.” France Inter

41 CRIME / NOIR CRIME / NOIR

Bernard Prou Christine Féret Fleury L'ULTIME MYSTÈRE DE PARIS LA FEMME SANS OMBRE (The Ultimate Mystery of Paris) (The Woman Without a Shadow) Anne Carrière, October 2019, 250 pages Denoël, May 2019, 256 pages

A suspense novel offering a clever combination of ◊ Under option in: Russia (Corpus/AST), Czech esotericism, alchemy, with Paris’s underground passages Republic (Albatros Media/Motto), Slovakia and catacombs as a background, to solve a gripping (Albatros Media), Lituania (Baltos Lankos), Serbia (Laguna), Ukraine (Old Lion). riddle. ◊ The rights of Christine Féret-Fleury’s previous In 1960, during the dramatic events that mark the end of novel, LA FILLE QUI LISAIT DANS LE MÉTRO, the Algerian war of independence, an unfailing friendship have been sold in 23 countries. builds up between three students, a teacher,and asupervisor Her passion? Opera, and Richard Strauss in particular. incidentally, a member of the OAS. Her occupation? Contract killer. Her next target? A world-famous conductor... Twenty years later, in Paris, the five men create a research circle dedicated to the study and preservation of priceless She doesn’t have a name. Doesn’t use the first person. historical archives that have been lost for over a thousand Keeps her distance. From everything and everyone, starting years. These archives, originally kept in the Qadisha with herself. A restaurant manager by day in Paris’ very posh sanctuary, in Northern Lebanon, date back to the first 8th arrondissement, by night she turns into a killing machine, centuries of our time. They consist of manuscripts and a a craft she began learning as a child from the man who mythical relic: St John the Baptist’s genuine head, embalmed murdered her grandfather and was himself executed years and tortured. To protect them from men’s covetousness, later – undoubtedly because he knew too much about his the five friends have built a crypt in the former quarries clients. When she isn’t killing, she travels the world, located beneath the Montparnasse cemetery. But the attending opera performances and concerts to listen to the murder of one of their close relations, then of one of them, works of her favorite composer, Richard Strauss. right in the middle of the cemetery, sets the alarm off. Her name is Hope Andriessen and she is a conductor. Gustave Mugniard, the police officer in charge of the Originally from Rwanda, she witnessed the massacre of investigation, has to take compulsory retirement. He then many of her family members. Ever since, music has been her offers his services to the surviving members of the “Qadisha safe haven and her sole reason for living. After years of circle”. tireless work, she has finally been named head of a renowned orchestra and is set to make her debut at ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Paris, a former physics teacher, Bernard Prou is the author ofALEXIS VASSILKOV OU LA Brussels’ Monnaie Opera House with an opera by Strauss, VIE TUMULTUEUSE DU FILS DE MAUPASSANT and La Femme sans ombre. DÉLATION SUR ORDONNANCE. These two women couldn’t be more different. Except that they share a passion for music... and the fact that the former will have to kill the latter...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: After studying literature and a few years studying the relationship between text and music in opera, Christine Féret-Fleury was an editor with Gallimard Jeunesse for many years. In 1996, she published her first book for children, Le Petit Tamour (Père Castor / Flammarion), followed by an “adult” novel in 1999, Les Vagues sont douces comme des tigres, then ninety other titles. Since 2001, she has worked primarily on writing and leads workshops where enthusiasts of all ages meet and interact. She lives in Paris.

42 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Noël Balen & Vanessa Barrot Nathalie Cohen MORT SUR LE GRIL MODUS OPERANDI LA SECTE DU SERPENT (Death on the Grill. Gourmet Crimes series vol 4.) (Modus Operandi, The Sect Of The Serpent) Fayard, September 2019, 184 pages Denoël, April 2019, 256 pages

◊ Under option in: Russia (Eksmo). ◊ The first volume of a series in which we follow an investigator as he explores Evil at work and ◊ A series that lets anyone who’s interested slip tightens his net around the man that he believes inside a hard-to-penetrate milieu: the world of fine to be the head of a vast criminal enterprise. food, with its unique structure. ◊ As the series progresses, our investigator’s ◊ Rights for previous title in the series in: Germany suspicions become increasingly convincing. (BTB) and US/English language (The French Book), Russia (Eksmo), Finland (Aviador). ◊ Each volume revolves around a different modus operandi. “Gourmet Crimes” combines gastronomy and suspense in a series of investigations led by authoritative restaurant Rome, 54 AD. An investigator by the name of Marcus critic and epicurean insider, Laure Grenadier. Tiberius relentlessly pursues a serial killer who is suspected of committing terrible crimes and who seems Ghislain Bergeton was one of the most dreaded culinary to benefit from some kind of impunity. It’s almost as critics of his generation. Now retired and living in the though he’s being protected by people in high places... Vaucluse region of Provence, he has just turned eighty and spends his days writing his memoirs, compiling an exhaustive Marcus Tiberius Alexander, a high-ranking Vigil in the night anthology on truffles and giving the occasional lecture on patrols called “The Watchmen of Rome” with a strict moral “the art of living à la française”. Journalists Laure Grenadier compass, relentlessly pursues Lucius Cornelius Lupus, the and Paco Alvarez are touring the region to research an young and ambitious son of a senator who is actually a serial article and are determined to get an interview with the killer. The two men couldn’t be more different. For one, our eccentric food critic. investigator is of foreign ancestry while the senator’s son is protected by his birth. Marcus suspects Lucius of the worst However, the discovery of Bergeton’s body, mutilated in of crimes: parricide, which is punishable by the terrible atro- cious conditions, turns their plans upside down. The death penalty of poena cullei, or “penalty of the sack.” stakes are high in the shadow of Mount Ventoux, between the muffled rivalries of gourmet food writers, the clashing The investigation, which is set under Nero’s reign in the egos of a handful of renowned chefs, and the behaviour of years 50 AD, takes us from the Field of Mars to the Palatine certain locals... that is suspicious to say the least! Hill and plunges us into the practices, habits, daily customs, and especially the strange rituals of a secret society ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Noël Balen and Vanessa Barrot are responsible for a series of crimes all with the same modus the co-authors of the six-volume series, “Crimes gourmands” operandi in the very heart of the rich and privileged families (Fayard), which is currently being adapted for television. of the Roman Senate.

With the help of the philosopher Seneca, who is said to be very close to the emperor, Marcus will try to prove the innocence of slaves who have been accused of killing their masters to save them from a mass crucifixion. But in doing so, he will uncover a terrifying truth.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Passionate about the Greco-Roman world, Nathalie Cohen is the author of an acclaimed work of non- fiction on the meeting of the Greeks, Jews, and Romans. She teaches classical studiesand Latin.

43 CRIME / NOIR Joseph Incardona Joseph Incardona CHALEUR DERRIÈRE LES PANNEAUX (Heat) IL Y A DES HOMMES Finitude, January 2017, 160 pages (They Are Men Behind The Signs) Finitude, April 2015, 278 pages

◊ English sample chapter available. Rights sold in: Italy (NNE). ◊ Rights sold in: Korea (Open Books), Czech ◊ Republic (Paseka). ◊ Winner of Grand Prix de Littérature Policière 2015. ◊ French pocket rights sold (Pocket). Was shortlisted for the Prix Polar Michel Lebrun ◊ A rhythmical instinctual and fast writing that ◊ tackles profound topics such as loneliness, illness 2015. and addiction in an entertaining and yet tragic way. ◊ Pocket rights and Film rights sold. ◊ A dark humour novel set in an unusual setting, ◊ Vengeance, suffering and death: a father is capable during an absurd event, staging two seemingly of anything when his daughter has been taken. opposite competitors who eventually come to understand each other. ◊ A raw, brutal and cutting tone that sucks you into the depths of human nature. ◊ An unexpected outcome that defines Incardona’s style. ◊ Exposing the dark side of motorway rest areas, which hide plenty of secrets behind their cheerful, ◊ Incardona proves once more his ability to turn holiday journey façades. small events into intriguing tales. His characters are well structured, exuberant and complex at the The style is no flab, it’s as dry as bone, and very visual, same time. how else can you describe a child murderer and a father, willing to do eveything to find him, kill him and destroy In a remote city in Finland, competitors from around the him. world gather for the World Sauna Championship. Although completely different at first, two candidates A motorway on a summer bank holiday weekend: a specific share the same eagerness to win the award no matter time, a specific place. A whole microcosm: the owner of the what it takes. snack shop, lorry drivers, servers, prostitutes, police officers etc., spends time there, watching thousands of cars drive by. Heinola, a Finnish city close to Helsinki, is known for hosting A perfectly organised micro-society exists between two rest once per year the World Sauna Championship. And for the areas, one that has its codes and its habits. Invisible people past three years Niko Tanner, a renowned Finnish porn star, who the holidaymakers don’t even see, except as part of is the acclaimed winner of the prestigious award. Eager to the boring scenery. But Joseph Incardona introduces an win again and confident in his success, he has only one element a disruptive element: Pierre. He has been roaming worthy opponent: Igor Azarov, a sixty-year-old short this motorway for six months now, ever since his daughter Russian man. At this time of year in Finland, locals finally disappeared from a rest area. He lives there, and never emerge from the long and harsh winter, eager to socialize leaves. He’s still searching for the detail that will allow him and gather around crazy competitions. Niko has his own fan to know, to understand. He’s patient. club and enjoys being a provocative competitor thus showing up at the very last minute to enrol for the When the same bank holiday comes around again, another competition. Igor on the other side is organised and takes it little girl disappears: for her parents, it’s the end of the very seriously. But nobody pays attention to him. As the world; for the police, it’s a tricky case; for Pierre, a stroke of competition begins, each participant gets ready in his own luck. It all depends on your point of view. way. Niko along with his girlfriend and porn actress Loviisa Foxx, drinks vodka, smokes, and takes drugs every night, not ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Incardona is Swiss with Italian caring about the rules at all. In the meantime in another roots. He is the author of several novels, of comic trips and scripts. hotel bedroom, Igor, silent and calm, focuses on his main He recently co-directed his first feature film « Milky Way ». In 2015 goal: winning. But this year, something is different. The he was awarded the Grand Prix de la Littérature Policière for the novel DERRIÈRE LES PANNEAUX IL Y A LES HOMMES gigantic Finnish is nervous, and the short Russian man is (Finitude), and was previsouly awarded the Grand Prix du Roman hiding something. As the competition goes on, Igor’s health Noir du Festival de Beaune in 2011. He is 47 and a member of the condition gets worse. He is ill, very ill. This competition will Italian football team of writers. be the last, and he is up to no good.

44 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries ITALIAN WRITERS

Tiziano Scarpa Luca Mercadante KAMIKAZE OF THE WEST PRESUNZIONE (Kamikaze d’Occidente) (Presumption) Minimum Fax, July 2019, 357 pages Minimum Fax, May 2019, 269 pages

The protagonist of Kamikaze of The West is a precarious ◊ Special mention at the Italo Calvino Prize. writer who is almost 40. He is a chronic penniless, so he ◊ A coming-of-age novel, set in the so called “Terra makes money thanks to a matter of clients: women pay him dei Fuochi”, an area in the south of Italy to pass their nights with him, to take a walk, to argue. characterized by a strong presence of Camorra. Everything has its price, its translation in money. But one day, he receives a proposal from an obscure character who ◊ This novel narrates very known places through a presents himself as a cultural officer of the Chinese new and internal perspective, focused on a young government: he must write a book on himself, to show the rebel without pre-established ideologies who has decadence of Europe and justify the imminent, not only just one simple desire: to begin living again. economic, Chinese invasion. Unless the writer traces, in his ◊ The reality of mafia is described both with irony own life or in everyone’s one, almost an ounce of passion. and desperation, giving to the reader a complete understanding of the complexity of this criminal “Just like what happened to Josef K in Kafka’s novel, the organization. Grotesque, tenderness and biting wit same happens to my protagonist: he discovers to be on trial mix together in this beautiful debut novel. by a very powerful authority, he is not the only one to be tried but the entire West. And like K. in The Trial, he seeks The places of Camorra seen through a new perspective, help in women. And he does it with the same enthusiasm in an ironic and powerful debut novel. and disenchantment”. This is what Tiziano Scarpa writes in his afterward to this new edition of his freest novel. Bruno Guida a high school senior in Caserta is trying to Kamikaze of The West actually refuses any conventions and escape from a world that claims him. He hates without consolations, and continues to be today an unclassifiable cease his village, Villa Literno. He looks with arrogance at his novel – as only real novels are – that mixes irony, province and at the yokels that live there, even at the quirks meditation, truth, invention and sex. and mannerisms of his parvenu schoolmates. Above all, he is not willing to follow and indulge his father’s obsessive ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tiziano Scarpa (1963) wrote the efforts. Since his legendary uncle Piero, twin brother of his collection of poems Le nuvole e i soldi(2018), the novels Il cipiglio father, disappeared without trace, his father has convinced del gufo (2018) and Il brevetto del geco (2015), and the collection himself that Piero has been victim of Camorra, and he has of essays Come ho preso lo scolo (2014). His most fa- mous books even gone so far as creating an association for legality, are Stabat Mater (2008), with which he won the Strega Prize in dedicated to Piero. Sarcasm and isolation are to Bruno the 2009, the poem Groppi d'amore nella scuraglia (2005) and his guide only possible defensive weapons: to show presumption, in Venezia è un pesce (2001). Minimum fax published his collection order to avoid that other people pretend they could cage of poems Una libellula di città in 2018 and his novel Kamikaze d’Occidente in 2019. him and decide for his life. He challenges everything and everyone, so that he can keep alive his dream of being “The author has irony, sarcasm, a rare rhythm in his style, in a “destined to something different”. And when the world personal and paradoxical elaboration of authors like Gadda and around him, his family included, crumbles, he is strongly Manganelli, because of so much intrusion of the self.” Corriere della tempted to seek a way of salvation in catastrophe. The Sera young protagonist tries to change his destiny from the one to which is destined. But he has to face the reality of the “It captures the reader in an unusual complicity, in a sort of places in which he lives: places in which mafia is part of each mutual identification that sweeps away any diaphragm.”Il Fatto moment of every day life. Even the most common events of Quotidiano a teenager life (first loves, schoolmates, sex, university) are characterized by the dynamics of the power of mafia.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Luca Mercadante (1976) received a special mention by the Calvino Prize jury for his novel Presumption. He published for Einaudi Nata per te. Storia di Alba raccontata fra noi (2018), written with Luca Trapanese.

45 FRENCH CANADIAN WRITERS FRENCH CANADIAN WRITERS

Nadine Bismuth Marie-Claire Blais UN LIEN FAMILIAL SOIFS #1 (A Family Bond) (These Festive Nights) Boréal, October 2018, 328 pages Boréal, 1996-2018, 328 pages

◊ 10,000 copies sold. ◊ Awarded the Prix du Gouverneur général 1996. ◊ Rights sold in: WEL (House of Anansi), Germany ◊ In this swirling, baroque fresco, Marie-Claire Blais (BTB Verlag/Random House). captures the essence of our apocalyptic age, rendering it in powerfully evocative prose. ◊ TV rights sold to Also. ◊ Critics around the world called this book a tour de ◊ Author previously translated into Russian and force, comparing Blais with Virginia Woolf, Dante, Czech. All rights reverted. Sophocles, and Shakespeare. ◊ This up-market novel is intelligent, funny and ◊ These Festive Nights, Thunder and Light, crunchy. Augustino and the Choir of Destruction, and ◊ A real page turner about family, love and domestic Rebecca, Born in the Maelstrom are acclaimed as life in North America with a Montreal touch. one of the greatest undertakings in modern Quebec fiction. ◊ This moving, engrossing love story is also a novel of manners: a precise and comic portrait, steeped The first volume in Marie-Claire Blais’ prize-winning in irony and pathos, of a time – our own – when series. decorating a kitchen can be a matter of utmost importance. A sun-drenched paradise in the Gulf of Mexico surrounded How does love work in a world like this, where human by the glimmering blue sea; Renata is convalescing on this island poised between two worlds: between great wealth beings are left to their own devices and submitted to the and extreme poverty, between the past and an uncertain diktats of commerce, fashion and a morality based solely future, between the beauty of the world and the horrors of on appearances? What connects two people to each history. other? Why does love take such a tragic, risible turn nowadays? During her time here, Renata becomes tormented by thirst -- for justice, for pleasure, for intoxication -- while all around Magalie is a kitchen designer. Guillaume is a policeman. They her, festivities are going on in join celebration of the birth of are both forty. She lives with a boyfriend who cheats on baby Vincent and the end of the twentieth century. Over her, and whom she cheats on in return. He is separated the course of three days and three nights a flock of from the mother of his daughter. They meet by chance, characters assembles: wealthy, poor, writers, artists facing through an unlikely family connection, then lose touch a few their own mortality, children immersed in innocent games, months later. young men dying of AIDS, refugees, the Ku Klux Klan -- an entire spectrum of humanity is depicted in the grip of doubt This moving, engrossing love story is also a novel of and suffering. manners: a precise and comic portrait, steeped in irony and pathos, of a time – our own – when decorating a kitchen ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marie-Claire Blais is the can be a matter of utmost importance. With her corrosive internationally revered author of more than twenty-five books, gaze, sharp wit and elegant, crystal-clear prose, familiar to many of which have been published around the world. In addition the many readers of her previous work, Nadine Bismuth’s to the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, which she has won four times, Blais has been awarded the Gilles-Corbeil new novel is a mirror held up to ourselves and what has Prize, the Médicis Prize, the Molson Prize, and Guggenheim become of our lives in a world of which we are the makers, Fellowships. She divides her time between Quebec and Florida. witnesses and crazed, pathetic protagonists. « Ce Soifs éblouissant et apocalyptique m’apparait comme « ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nadine Bismuth has published two le » grand roman de la littérature québécoise. » Lettres collections of short stories, LES GENS FIDÈLES NE FONT PAS québécoises LES NOUVELLES (1999) and et ÊTES-VOUS MARIÉE À UN PSYCHOPATHE ? (2009), as well as two novels, SCRAPBOOK (2004) and UN LIEN FAMILIAL (2018), all published by Éditions du Boréal. Her work is translated into several languages. She lives in Montreal.

46 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries FOCUS ON…

Theresa Revay Theresa Revay DERNIER ÉTÉ À MAYFAIR L'AUTRE RIVE DU BOSPHORE (Last Summer in Mayfair) (A Window on the Bosphorus) Belfond, November 2011, 450 pages Belfond, October 2013, 416 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Bertelsmann ◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Der Club Bertelsmann), /Goldmann), Poland (Weltbild), Spain (Ediciones Italy (Neri Pozza), Netherlands (Xander), Poland B), Serbia (Alnari) (Swiat Ksiazki), Spain (Ediciones B), Turkey (Everest), Serbia (Vulkan), Russia (Family Leisure ◊ 30,000 copies sold in France. Club). From the glittering ballrooms of Edwardian high society ◊ A distinguished Turkish family in danger, a daring to the fields of the Valley of the Somme, through a German archaeologist, a French military officer decade of delight and disaster, the promising young heirs who risks his reputation in search of love, desperate Russian refugees... of two patrician families discover the shocking truths behind family secrets, and search for the true meaning of ◊ As East meets West, gripping characters bring their lives. alive this thoroughly researched, moving novel about a changing world. 1911. The Rotherfields are a prominent English aristocratic A powerful novel set during the occupation of Istanbul by family. Since the eldest son died after an accident caused by the Allied Forces after WWI. his youngest brother, Edward, who has become a dashing aviator, womanizer and gambler, it is Julian who must carry Leyla, a modern, intelligent woman with political ties to the on the family name. But he is known as the “reluctant heir”. Sultan, is caught between her duty to her family and her Evangeline, the eldest daughter, has joined the Suffragettes. duty to her nation. Her comfortable life with her two Only Victoria is looking for an eligible young man. Along children and husband is threatened once the Allies occupy with their German cousins and French friends, their lives are Istanbul. As her brother and friends fight for survival and the shattered by the war. Personal challenges run head-on into independence of their country, Leyla must find a way to join the historical cataclysm... the struggle without sacrificing too much in the process. While a new Turkey rises from the ashes of the dazzling ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Theresa Révay is a European writer Ottoman Empire, Leyla learns the price she must pay for with a French twist. A novelist and translator, she has published her independence and freedom. several novels, including LA LOUVE BLANCHE and its sequel TOUS LES RÊVES DU MONDE, both translated into 8 languages and with combined sales of over 300,000 copies. “Au final, on applaudira ce destin de femme émouvant, cette fresque romanesque, qui offre un plaisir sans cesse renouvelé.” Avantages “La romancière, s'appuyant sur une documentation historique solide qu'elle sait glisser sans alourdir son intrigue, parvient à créer une atmosphère convaincante.” Le Figaro “Les romans de Theresa Révay relèvent de la vraie littérature - ancrée dans l'Histoire.” Le Figaro magazine “Theresa Révay possède le souffle romanesque de l'écrivain et la précision de l'historienne, elle s'impose comme l'une des “Theresa Révay nous offre encore une fois une captivante fresque romancières majeures des grandes fresques historiques.” Valeurs historique et une bouleversante histoire d'amour. C'est Byzance !” actuelles Madame Figaro

“La langue, d'une admirable fluidité, vient irriguer une histoire si “La romancière, connue pour ses belles fresques historiques, décrit romanesque que les images naissent toutes seules. A quand le film les premiers combats des femmes dans le monde musulman et ?” Le Figaro Magazine réussit un équilibre parfait entre orientalisme, histoire et romanesque.” Femme majuscule

47 FOCUS ON… Theresa Revay Theresa Revay LIVIA GRANDI OU LE SOUFFLE DU DESTIN LA LOUVE BLANCHE (Livia Grandi The Breeze of Destiny) (The White Tigress) Belfond, June 2005, 348 pages Belfond, March 2008, 492 pages

◊ Rights sold in: Italy (Sonzogno), Germany (Scherz ◊ Rights sold in: Germany (Bertelsmann/Goldmann, Verlag), Ukraine (Family Leisure Club, reverted), reverted), Italy (Neri Pozza, reverted), Poland Hungary (Athenaum, reverted) (Swiat Ksiazski), Spain (Circulo de Lectores / Plaza y Janés, reverted), Serbia (Alnari), Hungary ◊ 30,000 copies sold in France (Athenaeum, reverted), Czech Republic (Euromedia, reverted), Portugal (Circulo de ◊ The discovery of glassworking techniques from the most outstanding place: Murano is well included in Leitores, reverted) Ukraine (Family Leisure Club, reverted), Turkey. the bigger History of Europe. ◊ A parkling sage filled with passion, betrayal, and At the heart of Europe during the rise of totalitarism, a desire. passionate love story emerges between a free spirited woman and a talented artist man. A beautiful love story between two glassworkers between Murano and Metz Following her father's assassination and her mother's death, Xenia, a young woman from the Russian elite, finds herself In Murano, the young Venetian Livia Grandi is battling to alone to take care of her sister and baby brother. Like many save the Grandi glassworks from bankruptcy. Her worries of her compatriots, the young woman flees the Bolsheviks seem to multiply: a frivolous brother who has no concern and moves to Paris, where she faces the tragedies and for his heritage; financial difficulties; glassblowers who balk at destitution of exile. Determined to support her family, working for a woman; the unnerving desire of Marco Vanier Xenia finds work as model for a French fashion designer to marry her and unite the two biggest glassworks in who makes the most of her extraordinary beauty. When Murano. Her fate is sealed when she meets François Nagel, she meets the dashing German photographer Max von the heir to a glassworks in Metz. She follows him in France, Passau, she knows her life will be changed forever and they in the austere Nagel household, run by François' sister Elise, engage in a passionate relationship between Paris and Berlin. a cold woman who will not rest until she is rid of Livia. But Xenia is reluctant to give in fully to her love for Max as she values her independence and family too much to risk In Wahrstein, the ravages of war have taken their toll and losing them. The events of history also contribute to vengeance is in the air.... The Germans from the separate the lovers further. Horrified by the rise of Hitler, Sudetenland are forced into exile, leaving everything they Max enters the Resistance movement, in part to shield a own behind. Hannah's bags are packed... When her brother, Jewish former lover. Xenia, who finds herself pregnant hides Andreas, comes back from the war, he finds strangers in the fact from Max and marries a Parisian politician who will their home. Learning of his mother and sister's exile, he sets provide for her and for her family and protect them. Will out to find them, finally tracking them to a refugee camp in their love emerge unscathed from the darkness of a Germany. There, he must fulfil another mission: deliver a merciless era? letter to the family of one of his fellow soldiers in France - the Nagels. When Andreas and Livia meet in Metz, they fall in love at first sight ... Theresa Revay Meanwhile, in Murano, the future of the Grandi glassworks TOUS LES RÊVES DU MONDE hangs in the balance and Flavio is no longer capable of (All the Dreams in the World) managing the family business. Only Livia who knows the Belfond, May- 2009, 456 pages secret to chiaroscuro glass may lie their financial salvation. In this sequel to her internationally bestselling LA LOUVE BLANCHE‚ Révay tells the story of the next generation. “Une héritière d'Henri Troyat est née.” Lire 1945. Berlin is destroyed. For the heirs of a Europe that lies

in ruins, everything needs to be rebuilt. Xenia and Max's daughter Natacha, her cousin Axel, her friends, young Jewish survivors of a family destroyed... They are all fighting to take back what is rightly theirs and build a new world.

48 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Hugo Boris Hugo Boris LA DÉLÉGATION NORVÉGIENNE JE N'AI PAS DANSÉ DEPUIS LONGTEMPS (The Norwegian Delegation) (I Haven't Danced in a Long Time) Belfond, September 2007, 264 pages Belfond, January 2010, 396 pages

◊ 20,000 copies sold . ◊ 10,000 copies sold France Isolated deep in the forest, prisoners of the snow and ◊ A novel mixing science, psychology, poetry that cold, seven hunters fight to survive and battle against the resonates entirely as an ode to Earth’s beauty. madness that draws near. ◊ Very well documented about life on board of a spatial station, this story takes us into a formidable A hunting expedition with any specialized guides. Five men intimate journey. and two women , all strangers, come from the four corners ◊ Hugo Boris masters the art of describing his of Europe. Seven snowbound hunters who must stave off characters feelins through a sense of smart details, the cold, the hunger and paranoia. Prisoners? In a forest? adding to the immersion in the story. René Derain slowly becomes convinced that he is Ivan is chosen to be the first man to stay more than 400 condemned to die. Not of the cold, fatigue or gangrene; he days in orbit around the Earth. An ordinary man who is will be murdered. He senses the whiff of a pact. He knows married with two children will leave the planet. that they have become mere puppets. And the trap has been set. While the Soviet empire falls into chaos, he turns endlessly. For Ivan, the sun rises and falls 16 times per day. As time ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Hugo Boris is the author of three goes on, he loses sleep, his sense of smell and sense of novels, all published by Belfond: LE BAISER DANS LA NUQUE taste. His loses all reason. He trained for years, with his (2005), prix Emmanuel-Roblès ; LA DÉLÉGATION mind always set on the cosmos. Now, he only has eyes for NORVÉGIENNE (2007), the inaugural literary prize winner of Hebdos en Région; and JE N'AI PAS DANSÉ DEPUIS Earth. It is unbearable how much he misses it. LONGTEMPS (2010), prix Amerigo-Vespucci. “A la manière d'un Jules Verne moderne, l'auteur allie précision scientifique, art du suspense et poésie pour peindre la vie à bord d'un vaisseau spatial.” Nouvel Observateur

“Hugo Boris réussi l'exploit de mêler une impeccable précision scientifique à un récit d'une humanité inouïe.” Télé 7 jours

“Hugo Boris a une vraie fibre poétique, qui donne un relief incroyable à des évènements aussi simples que par exemple l'arrivée d'une vraie carotte... Les dernières pages, celles du retour sur Terre et de la reconquête de la station debout, sont un pur moment d'anthologie.” aufeminin.com “Remarquablement écrit et richement documenté, c'est sans doute l'un des meilleurs romans jamais écrits sur l'espace !” Ciel & espace

49 FOCUS ON… Hugo Boris Hugo Boris LE BAISER DANS LA NUQUE TROIS GRANDS FAUVES (The Kiss on the Neck) (Man Times Three) Belfond, August 2005, 216 pages Belfond, January 2010, 288 pages

◊ Under option for a TV adaptation. ◊ 15,000 copies sold France ◊ 20,000 copies sold France. ◊ Taking glimpses of important moments of their lives, Hugo Boris crafts an unrelenting portraiture ◊ Awarded the Prix Roblès, which is granted by the of these remarkable men, grasping certain truths jurors of the Prix Goncourt. that escaped historians. The improbable meeting of a deaf woman and a piano ◊ The author has imagined a throughline that ties teacher. They build a special relationship filled with these men together through history, their sensuality around the musical instrument. companionship with death that transformed into an exceptional strength.

Louis and Fanny. A man and a woman who meet every ◊ Three short and accurate portraits of three giants, thursday. She becomes deaf; he is a piano teacher. She linked by a common thread: great men. wants to beat the handicap to the punch, makes the most of music before falling into silence. Lesson and lesson, she The portrait of three veritable monsters: Danton, Hugo tells stories. Lesson and lesson, he listens. and Churchill. An “anti-biography” that is a masterpiece in terms of style, precision and insightfulness. A fair exchange which will perhaps help heal a wound the depth of which she isn't yet aware. Georges Danton, Victor Hugo, Winston Churchill : the one thing that these three heroes have in common is that they ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Paris, Hugo Boris divides his were confronted with death at an early age, survived, and time between directing films and writing. He was awarded the Prix were made so much stronger for it. Trois grands fauves or du Jeune Écrivain in 2003 for his short story N'oublie pas de how to defy death in three lessons. montrer ma tête au peuple (Mercure de France). Le Baiser dans la nuque is his first novel. “Tout à la fois elliptique et évocateur, jamais pédant. Un très bon roman, écrit dans un style puissant et élégant” Femme Majuscule

“Ouvrage palpitant dès la première ligne et dont on savoure chaque phrase jusqu'à la dernière page en tremblant de peur, d'impatience et de plaisir.” L'Echo

“Un très bon exercice de style.” La Montagne

50 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries DYSTOPIA / FANTASY / SF

Maude Deschênes-Pradet Gabriel Katz HIVERNAGES LE SERMENT DE L'ORAGE (Winter World) (The Storm Oath) Hurtubise XYZ, October 2017, 187 pages Book 1: April 2019 Book 2: November 2019 Book 3: Forthcoming in 2020 Bragelonne, 480,000 words per book

◊ English sample available.

◊ Winner of the Prix des Horizons imaginaires 2019. ◊ Selected as a Best Book of the Month by ◊ An award-winning and established author. Châtelaine Magazine. ◊ Lively, spirited dialogues. ◊ Characters try to survive the cold, the loneliness A refreshing tale that mixes a dark curse, and death among a northern lights landscape, very ◊ adventure and humour. efficiently described by the style of the author.

◊ A story that alternates a delicate and poetic They were seven. Seven knights under a stormy sky. atmosphere with something powerful and harsh, aligned with post-apocalyptic and fantasy Morgien and Cynon, two young knights whose heads are background. filled with dreams of glory and heroic deeds, are eager to prove their worth. They leap at the chance when Lord ◊ An electrifying thriller that tackles many issues Edwin de Gore asks them to enter his service in the High making headlines today and an exquisite ode to Lands, arid moorland occupied by a marauding band of the Canadian Far North and the wildness that lives armed men. in both man and nature. What if Quebec’s long winter never ended? That is the Without men and without means, the two knights are icy truth that the characters in Winter World have to expected to act with courage and honour in the face of face. In their makeshifts shelters - an abandoned church adversity. But the place they have been posted to is a populated with pigeons, a bunker, an underground city, a sombre and noxious location. The Lord’s manor becomes the scene of unexplained deaths, and a macabre fortress forest - they try to organize their lives despite the cold, appears when night falls. hunger, and loneliness. Disturbing phenomena recur, and soon there is no longer There’s Thalie, who hopes to save her beloved twin sister any doubt that the place has been cursed. The Devil is Simone by amputating her arm; Aude, the little girl with approaching, and with him, the end of the kingdom. crooked hands; the Old Man, who locked himself in the building where he wasted his life as a civil servant; Ren, the ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gabriel Katz has worked as a graphic orphan boy who refuses to cut his hair; Socrates, the faithful novel illustrator and an author of youth fiction, fantasy novels, and wolf-dog. And many others, all watched over by the thrillers. He has also been a ghost writer for renowned authors. countless, menacing pigeons. Told in entwined fragments, He is the winner of the French literary awards Prix des Imaginales their stories of despair and hope form a rich, bewitching tale and Prix des Halliénnales, and has established himself as one of the carried by the author’s magnetic style. major figures of French fantasy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Quebec City in 1983, where she still lives, Maude Deschênes-Pradet teaches yoga and literature, and completed in 2017 a PhD in Creative Writing. Winter World is her second novel.

“Isabelle Lafortune writes with intensity and such an alluring perception of life up North that her descriptions almost convince us we are there. ” Le Devoir

“Maude Deschênes-Pradet’s fine style grasps us like the wind. Bright, despite the snow.” Les libraires

“Winter World masterly and poetically seizes the codes of science- fiction.” Nuit blanche

51 DYSTOPIA / FANTASY / SF Serge Brussolo René Barjavel ANATOMIK LES CHEMINS DE KATMANDOU Bragelonne, November 2019, 448 pages (The Paths of Katmandou) Presses de la Cité, 1969 NE October 2019, 304 pages

◊ A cult author with an inimitable style, the winner of numerous prestigious prizes, several of whose Love, drugs, lost illusions. There are paths to lose oneself, books have been adapted for the cinema. and those to find oneself: the paths of Kathmandu. ◊ A fast-paced narrative that never slows down. May 1968. Olivier, a young student, decides to escape his A modern yet unclassifiable story that seduces the ◊ dreams and ideals in search of power, fortune and his father, reader with its originality and its whacky universe. a businessman who organizes trips for billionaires to Nobody knows it, but the war of the worlds has already Kathmandu in Nepal. begun. He meets Jane there, a British hippy, a lost-soul who takes Kurt Angström is dead. But that does not prevent the drugs in search of an ideal communitarian lifestyle in the formidable firm ANATOMIK Biotech from hiring him as a sacred city. Although they fall in love, they are separated by spy. This mysterious company can transform ghosts into their personal quests... invisible secret agents who can both hack the most complex computer systems and get inside the heads of living people ABOUT THE AUTHOR: René Barjavel (1911 201985) is one to plant suicidal and murderous ideas. of France’s most significant science fiction authors of all time. New editions of his most well-known classics La Nuit des temps and Le grand secret have recently been published by Presses de la Cité. Chuck Ozzborn, a rude and misanthropic retired elite soldier, unwillingly becomes mixed up in the biggest conspiracy of all time. In an America defeated by a coalition of drug barons and which has lost its will to fight, the two men are confronted with a threat that goes far beyond anything they could ever have imagined.

Its first symptom is the possession of the population by the souls of the dead, with the complicity of governments. Unbeknownst to all, the Apocalypse is entering Phase 2...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Serge Brussolo was born in Paris in 1951. His works of science fiction and horror have captivated readers of all ages with his inventiveness and ability to create suspense. His biggest success to date, Peggy Sue and the Ghosts, has been translated into seventeen languages.

52 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries

(RE)DISCOVERED WRITERS

Pierre Gripari Martin Page CONTES DE LA RUE BROCA COMMENT JE SUIS DEVENU STUPIDE (Tales of the Broca Street) (How I Became Stupid) Table Ronde, 1967-2019, 224 pages Le Dilettante, 2001

◊ Rights sold in: Latvia (Omnia Mea). ◊ Rights previously sold in over 30 languages. ◊ The giants, witches and mermaids who leap for ◊ Martin Page deals with a recognized quality, the pages are animated by a very modern spirit. intelligence, just like a failing.

◊ Blessed with healthy disrespect for authority, the ◊ Ignorance is bliss, or so hopes Antoine, the lead author plays with the fabulous and takes a character this stinging satire, a modern day greatpleasure in upsetting the natural order of the "Candide" with a Darwin Award-like sensibility. fantastic. Antoine, exceptionally young gifted student, is sure that CONTES DE LA RUE BROCA is a great classic of the his insatiable curiosity is, originally, the reason of his life French children’s literature. With more than 2 000 000 sickness. He is clever, but he can not live with his copies sold in France, it is regularly adapted for theater cleverness. After a few curative radical experiences, he and included to school reading lists. starts to cure of cleverness as a weakness. With care, he will search for the method to get a sweeter life. Rue Broca is not a street quite like any other street. This is a twisty, narrow, crooked and sunken street, where A twenty-five-year-old Aramaic scholar, Antoine has had it everybody knows everybody, which is exceptional in a city with being brilliant and deeply self-aware in today’s culture. like Paris. One day, a certain odd character started turning So tortured is he by the depth of his perception and up in the area. This person was known as Monsieur Pierre. understanding of himself and the world around him that he He was fairly tall, with chestnut hair that stuck up in spikes vows to denounce his intelligence by any means necessary like a hedgehog, browny-green eyes and glasses. He always in order to become stupid enough to be a happy, wore a two-day-old beard. He came to rue Broca only to functioning member of society. What follows is a dark and frequent the café, but he was often there and at all hours of hilarious odyssey as Antoine tries everything from the day. For a long time, the population of rue Broca alcoholism to stock-trading in order to lighten the burden of wondered what he really did for living. That is to say only his brain on his soul. the grown-ups, of course, because the children never wondered anything of the sort, for they understood right ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Martin Page was born in 1975 (Paris). away: Monsieur Pierre was an old witch! Before publishing his first novel he went to college for a few years. A dilettante student, he changed majors every year, and The encounter of Monsieur Pierre with the children of rue studied law, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, sociology, art Broca led to the creation of these stories, where a little history and anthropology. He wrote an essay about rain, and devil tries to be good instead of doing bad things, a pair of prefaces for the French translations of Oscar Wilde’s The Soul of shoes fall in love with each other, a naughty pig swallows Man Under Socialism, and Pen, Pencil and Poison, Horst Hamann’s Paris Vertical, as well as for Balzac’s Traité des excitants the North Star. modernes. His novels have been translated in a dozen languages. He also writes for children (I am an earthquake, Conversation with a ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Pierre Gripari (1925 201990) studied chocolate cake…). He is a recipient of the Akademie Schloss at the prestigious Louis-le-Grand lycée, and tried his hand at Solitude Fellowship. He lives in Nantes. various jobs, including serving in the army and acting as a trade- union delegate for an oil company. He resigned in 1957 in order “From this completely absurd run to emptiness, Martin Page to become a writer, but it was not until the 1970s that he became writes a novel with a total logic. This satire of our world, which famous, with the publication of his CONTES DE LA RUE BROCA, looks as if it was reasonable, is the work of a writer who translated into more than 20 languages. controls as well his style as his subdued humour. A true success.” Le Monde

“Antoine, the hero, suffers to be too much lucid. A strong and crazy book.” ELLE

“Hilarous, well hurling truths, this first novel delights too – and above all – by his fresh and witty writing. So much intelligence in the phrasing is a real pleasure.” Télérama

53 (RE)DISCOVERED WRITERS Jacqueline Harpman Raymond Guérin MOI QUI N’AI PAS CONNU LES HOMMES LA PEAU DURE (I Who Have Never Known Men) (Hard Skin) Stock, 1995, 272 pages Finitude, new edition October 2017, 128 pages

◊ Full English translation soon available. ◊ Awarded the Prix Mémorable by Librairies Initiales. ◊ Waterstones’ Rediscovered Classics May 2019. ◊ Three voices, three sisters, three monologues. Three fragile women, tossed about in a world too ◊ Rights sold to the United Kingdom (Vintage) and big for them, too cruel too, a chauvinistic world, previously sold in 12 other languages (reverted). ruled by men. ◊ 50,000 copies sold in France. ◊ 70 years after its first publication, this highly social ◊ A philosophical exploration of human novel – if not openly feminist – still holds a true consciousness, both collective and individual. modernity. It is a harsh plea for the cause of the small, the weak, the nobodies. ◊ Part thriller, part mystery, this novel shows us the power of one person without memories to reinvent ◊ Theatre adaptation during the Avignon festival in herself piece by piece, emotion by emotion, in the 2010, highly praised by the critics. process teaching us much about what it means to be human. A harsh and scathing novel, with strongly feminist accents. ◊ The girl, who is never given a name, is both a sad figure and one of extreme strength. 3 women, three sisters.The first one, Clara, naturally ◊ Can be compared to The Handmaid’s Tale. obedient, is a maid in a bourgeois family. After a miscarriage – she was in love, but Roger prefer- red running away – she ◊ Set in an upsetting apocalyptic world that questions is accused of abortion and sent to pri- son. Resigned, she the most existential questions. barely defends herself. What’s the point? The second, ◊ Answers are few and only raise more questions! Jaquotte aspires to a petty-bourgeois way of life: a little business, with a little husband, who gives her a little girl. But The haunting and unforgettable account of a near future Jacquotte has little health and the sanatorium is costly. on a barren earth where women are kept in When she is accused of robbery the police interferes and underground cages guarded by uniformed groups of men. she ends up on the streets. Luckily a nice widower hires her as a maid, and puts her in his bed. At least she has a roof Thirty-nine women and a girl are being held prisoner in a for her daughter, even if it means taking a few punches...The cage underground. The guards are all male, and never speak third is Louison. the most depraved and emancipated of all to them. None of them know why they are being held sisters. Her tragedy is called Jo. She loves him too much, she prisoner, or why there is one child among thirty-nine adults. is jealous. He couldn’t care less that she sleeps with others, One day, an alarm sounds, and the guards flee; the as long as he finds his own interest. Louison knows that all prisoners are subsequently able to escape. They find this will probably end badly for her and her two sisters, as themselves on an immense barren plain, with no other badly as it has begun. people anywhere, and no clue as to what has happened to the world. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Raymond Guérin was born in Paris in 1905. After studies in Poitiers and some internships in luxury It is narrated by the youngest of the women, the only one hotels that inspired his L’APPRENTI (Gallimard, 1946), he became with no memory of what the world was like before the an insurance broker in Bordeaux, shortly before WWII. He spent part of war in a stalag as he recalls in his masterpiece LES cages, who must teach herself, without books or sexual POULPES (Gallimard, 1953). He died in Bordeaux in 1955. contact, the essential human emotions of longing, loving, learning, companionship, and dying. « Pessimiste lucide, Raymond Guérin écrit à l’encre de la misère et du désespoir. Sa syntaxe fluide et minutieuse, son Nightmarish and tranquil, impassive and moving. style épuré sans emphase ni pathos, touchent droit et juste, émeuvent sans détours ni circonvolutions. » Les Trois Coups ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jacqueline Harpman was a Belgian psychoanalyst and novelist. She is the author of several best-selling « Vous devez lire Guérin ! Tout Guérin. C’est immense ! » Le works published by Stock, many of them translated. Amongst her masque & la plume (France Inter) works, ORLANDA won the Médicis prize in 1996. She died in 2012. “A small miracle.” The New York Times

54 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries Sarah Léon Maxence Fermine WANDERER NEIGE (Wanderer) (Snow) Héloïse d'Ormesson, March 2016, 176 pages Arléa, 1999, 100 pages

◊ Full English translation available. ◊ Full English translation available. ◊ Carried by a Schubertian melody, Wanderer is a ◊ Rights previously sold in more than 30 countries. twilight adagio in the depths of winter that will All rights reverted. take the reader in a romantic atmosphere. ◊ 300,000 copies sold in France ◊ Poetic musical references and a subtle ode to German romanticism. ◊ With stunning visual images created out of minimalist prose, Snow is as delicate and inspiring ◊ A fast-paced book with many flashbacks. as the haiku poetry it celebrates and emulates.

The story of a French composer and his former student, ◊ There is the portrait of an elegant Japan where, brilliant but difficult, who reappears unexpectedly after between violence and tenderness, tradition an absence of 10 years. confronts the forces of life. ◊ Fermine meditates on poetry, love and art in this The composer and professor of music Hermin shut himself elegant love story-cum-parable set in Japan in the away in the Bourbonnais, devoting himself to writing a late 19th century. tribute to Schubert. But on a cold January evening his blessed hours of studious peace are interrupted when one An international bestseller, Snow is a novel that reads of his former students—Lenny, a pianist prodigy—comes like a poem. Limpid, delicate, and pure like its title. In knocking at his door. But still together, they will encounter nineteenth-century Japan, a young haiku poet named ghosts from the past including musical osmosis, blindness Yuko journeys through snow-covered mountains on a and the expectation of a revelation. Romantic with a capital quest for art and finds love instead. R, the novel ultimately treats the relationship between the two men with a delicacy that is unexpectedly moving. Delicate, sensitive Yuko Akita informs his father that he wishes to become a poet so that he can “learn to watch the ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sarah Leon was born in 1995. She passing of time”. Despite his father’s skepticism, Akita is studies literature and musicology. WANDERER is her first novel. soon writing beautiful haiku based on his obsession with snow. Seeking to help advance the boy’s career, his father “Léon’s innovative blending of events across time and her delicate invites the imperial court poet to evaluate Yuko’s work; emotional precision make for a bewitching, immersive experience.” Publisher's weekly after acknowledging the boy’s talent, the poet tells Akita that he needs to study other art forms. Akita embarks on a “Aside from writing lyrical, evocative prose, Léon’s other precocious journey to study with master artist Soseki; along the way he talent is her understanding of people. This capacity is a hallmark of comes upon a strikingly beautiful European woman frozen some of the world’s better writers. Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and into a massive chunk of ice. The elderly Soseki begins Faulkner come to mind, among others. That Léon wrote this teaching Akita, and the narrative shifts to focus on the older discerning novel when she was 21 speaks to future works that artist, a former samurai who left the military after being should explore a more expansive landscape.” New York Journal of wounded and married a beautiful French tightrope walker books named Snow. The happy couple had a daughter, but after raising the girl Snow grew restless. She went back to tightrope walking, and died in an accident while performing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Maxence Fermine, the author of the best-selling NEIGE (Snow), composes singular books combining poetry and fiction. After an incursion into children’s literature with the LA PETITE MARCHANDE DES RÊVES (The Little Dream- Seller) trilogy, he returned to adult literature with LE PALAIS DES OMBRES (2014), later followed by ZEN (2015, 15,000 copies sold, rights sold in Latvia to Zvaigzne), CHAMAN (201è) UN ÉTÉ SURRÉEL (2018).

55 (RE)DISCOVERED WRITERS Nicolas Fraissinet ...... 16 DES ÉTOILES DANS LES YEUX ...... HIGHLIGHTS 3 Louis-Philippe Dalembert ...... 16 Thomas Gunzig ...... 3 MUR MÉDITERRANÉE ...... FEEL GOOD ...... Jean-Baptiste Andrea ...... 3 COMMERCIAL 17 CENT MILLIONS D’ANNÉES ET UN JOUR ...... Jérémie Lefebvre ...... 17 Cécile Coulon ...... 4 L'ITALIENNE QUI NE VOULAIT PAS ...... UNE BÊTE AU PARADIS ...... Carène Ponte ...... 17 Sophie Bassignac ...... 4 VOUS FAITES QUOI POUR NOÊL ? ...... LE PLUS FOU DES DEUX ...... Nathalie Hug ...... 18 Yannick Grannec ...... 5 EDDIE ...... LES SIMPLES ...... François Bourdon ...... 18 Alexis Ragougneau ...... 5 LA FONTAINE AUX VIOLETTES ...... OPUS 77 ...... Philippe Amar ...... 19 Jean-Paul Dubois ...... 6 LE PETIT ROI DU MONDE ...... TOUS LES HOMMES N'HABITENT PAS ...... Annabelle Combes ...... 19 Jean-Paul Dubois ...... 6 LA CALANQUE DE L'AVIATEUR ...... UNE VIE FRANÇAISE ...... Lionel Aboo ...... 20 Dominique Barbéris ...... 7 POUR QUE LE JOUR DE VOTRE MORT ...... UN DIMANCHE À VILLE-D’AVRAY ...... Xavier de Moulins ...... 20 Franck Bouysse ...... 7 LA VIE SANS TOI ...... NÉ D’AUCUNE FEMME ...... Anne Michel ...... 21 POUR QUELQUES BULLES DE BONHEUR ...... DEBUT NOVEL / NEW VOICES 8 Virginie Grimaldi ...... 21 Guillaume Lavenant ...... 8 QUAND NOS SOUVENIRS ...... PROTOCOLE GOUVERNANTE ...... Marie-Bernadette Dupuy ...... 22 Guillaume Sorensen ...... 8 1. L'ORPHELINE DE MANHATTAN ...... LE PLANISPHÈRE LIBSKI ...... Marie-Bernadette Dupuy ...... 22 Véronique Pierron ...... 9 2. LES LUMIÈRES DE BROADWAY ...... LES MIRACLES DE L'OURCQ ...... Marie-Bernadette Dupuy ...... 22 Olly Dorchamps ...... 9 3. LES LARMES DE L'HUDSON ...... CEUX QUE JE SUIS ...... Françoise Bourdin ...... 23 Gabrielle Levy ...... 10 SI LOIN SI PROCHES ...... AU RENDEZ-VOUS DES INSOMNIAQUES ...... Françoise Bourdin ...... 23 Jacky Durand ...... 10 GRAN PARADISO ...... LE CAHIER DE RECETTES ...... ROMANCE / EROTICA 24 UP-MARKET 11 Louisa Méonis ...... 24 Hélène Gaudy ...... 11 BETTY ANGEL ...... UN MONDE SANS RIVAGE ...... Emmanuelle Arsan ...... 24 Jeanne Benameur ...... 11 EMMANUELLE 1 ...... CEUX QUI PARTENT ...... Odile d'Outremont ...... 12 FEEL GOOD 25 BAIKONOUR ...... Anne Dauphine Julliand ...... 25 Agathe Colombier-Hochberg ...... 12 JULES CÉSAR ...... LES 7 PREMIERS JOURS ...... Laure Manel ...... 25 Isabelle Autissier ...... 13 L'EMBARRAS DU CHOIX ...... OUBLIER KLARA ...... Ondine Khayat ...... 26 Maxence Fermine ...... 13 ÉCOUTE LA PETITE MUSIQUE ...... LA PROBABILITÉ DU BONHEUR ...... Lorraine Fouchet ...... 26 TOUT CE QUE TU VAS VIVRE ...... CONTEMPORARY 14 Agnès Martin-Lugand ...... 27 Julia Deck ...... 14 UNE ÉVIDENCE ...... PROPRIÉTÉ PRIVÉE ...... Aurélie Valognes ...... 27 Julien Dufresne-Lamy ...... 14 LA CERISE SUR LE GÂTEAU ...... JOLIS, JOLIS MONSTRES ...... Clélie Avit ...... 28 Luc Lang ...... 15 L’EXPÉRIENCE DE LA PLUIE ...... LA TENTATION ...... Clélie Avit ...... 28 David Lelait-Helo ...... 15 JE SUIS LÀ ...... 28 UN OISEAU DE NUIT À BUCKINGHAM ...... 56 Lester Literary Agency & Associates / Fall 2019 / Fiction Catalogue / Central, Eastern Europe & Baltic countries BIO & HISTORICAL 29 LA FEMME SANS OMBRE ...... Olivier Bellamy ...... 29 Noël Balen & Vanessa Barrot ...... 43 L'AUTOMNE AVEC BRAHMS ...... MORT SUR LE GRIL ...... Philippe Hayat ...... 29 Nathalie Cohen ...... 43 OÙ BAT LE CŒUR DU MONDE ...... MODUS OPERANDI LA SECTE DU SERPENT .. Odile Bouhier ...... 30 Joseph Incardona ...... 44 LE BAZAR DE LA CHARITÉ ...... CHALEUR ...... Marc Petitjean ...... 30 Joseph Incardona ...... 44 LE CŒUR : FRIDA KHALO À PARIS ...... DERRIÈRE LES PANNEAUX ...... Michelle Tourneur ...... 31 ITALIAN WRITERS 45 LA FOLLE ARDEUR ...... Tiziano Scarpa ...... 45 Colin Thibert ...... 31 KAMIKAZE OF THE WEST ...... TORRENTIUS ...... Luca Mercadante ...... 45 José Frèches ...... 32 PRESUNZIONE ...... LA PETITE VOLEUSE DE SOIE ...... Christian Jacq ...... 32 FRENCH CANADIAN WRITERS 46 HOREMHEB ...... Nadine Bismuth ...... 46 Henri Loevenbruck ...... 33 UN LIEN FAMILIAL ...... LE LOUP DES CORDELIERS ...... Marie-Claire Blais ...... 46 Olivier Merle ...... 33 SOIFS #1 ...... LIBRE D’AIMER ...... Camille de Peretti ...... 34 FOCUS ON… 47 LE SANG DES MIRABELLES ...... Theresa Revay ...... 47 Pascal Janovjak ...... 34 DERNIER ÉTÉ À MAYFAIR ...... LE ZOO DE ROME ...... Theresa Revay ...... 47 L'AUTRE RIVE DU BOSPHORE ...... THRILLER 35 Theresa Revay ...... 48 Nicolas Beuglet ...... 35 LIVIA GRANDI OU LE SOUFFLE DU DESTIN .. L'ÎLE DU DIABLE ...... Theresa Revay ...... 48 Jérôme Loubry ...... 35 LA LOUVE BLANCHE ...... LES REFUGES ...... Theresa Revay ...... 48 Fabrice Papillon ...... 36 TOUS LES RÊVES DU MONDE ...... RÉGRESSION ...... Hugo Boris ...... 49 Bertil Scali & Raphael de Andreis ...... 36 LA DÉLÉGATION NORVÉGIENNE ...... AIR ...... Hugo Boris ...... 49 Niko Tackian ...... 37 JE N'AI PAS DANSÉ DEPUIS LONGTEMPS ...... AVALANCHE HOTEL ...... Hugo Boris ...... 50 Johana Gustawsson ...... 37 LE BAISER DANS LA NUQUE ...... SÅNG ...... Hugo Boris ...... 50 Johana Gustawsson ...... 38 TROIS GRANDS FAUVES ...... MÖR ...... Johana Gustawsson ...... 38 DYSTOPIA / FANTASY / SF 51 BLOCK 46 ...... Maude Deschênes-Pradet ...... 51 Sophie Endelys ...... 39 HIVERNAGES ...... LES GARDIENNES DU SILENCE ...... Gabriel Katz ...... 51 Laurent Philipparie ...... 39 LE SERMENT DE L'ORAGE ...... LECTIO LETALIS ...... Serge Brussolo ...... 52 Bernard Minier ...... 40 ANATOMIK ...... M, LE BORD DE L'ABÎME ...... René Barjavel ...... 52 Karine Giebel ...... 40 LES CHEMINS DE KATMANDOU ...... DE FORCE ...... (RE)DISCOVERED WRITERS 53 Olivier Norek ...... 41 Pierre Gripari ...... 53 SURFACE ...... CONTES DE LA RUE BROCA ...... Olivier Norek ...... 41 Martin Page ...... 53 THE CAPITAINE COSTE TRILOGY ...... COMMENT JE SUIS DEVENU STUPIDE ...... CRIME / NOIR 42 Jacqueline Harpman ...... 54 Bernard Prou ...... 42 MOI QUI N’AI PAS CONNU LES HOMMES ...... L'ULTIME MYSTÈRE DE PARIS ...... Raymond Guérin ...... 54 Christine Féret Fleury ...... 42 LA PEAU DURE ...... 57 (RE)DISCOVERED WRITERS Sarah Léon ...... 55 WANDERER ...... Maxence Fermine ...... 55 NEIGE ......

58 (RE)DISCOVERED WRITERS Anastasia Lester Representation for Eastern & Central Europe & Founder, Director & Agent Baltic countries Lester Literary Agency Cell phone : +33 6 60 77 55 50 Actes Sud + Rouergue + Gaïa Office phone : +33 9 52 59 41 77 Anne Carrière Arléa L’Atalante

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