Ignored by the national press and TV shows, authors of regional literature retain a large readership, with their rural but not always ancestral stories. The famous Brive Book Fair which ended on Sunday once again put them in the spotlight.
At the Brive Book Fair, Christian Signol, one of the French’s favorite novelists, continues the signings, almost stealing the show from Amélie Nothomb or the last Prix Goncourt Jean-Baptiste Andrea. If the prestigious award sells an average of 400,000 copies, the Corrèze author with 45 novels sells each of his large formats at 100,000 copies. Not counting the pocket editions. From The Blue Pebbles, in 1984, this lover of vanished times sold 15 million books, all formats combined, and was translated into 15 languages. During the inauguration of the fair on Friday November 10, Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak paid tribute to her 40-year career.
Like Jim Harrison or William Faulkner
“My masterpiece is to last. I have established close ties with a very loyal readership by talking to them about them, about their families who have lived through great History”explains the author of the Esperance River, which relates the rural world, also through its emptying villages or its municipal school. His latest novel, A French family (Albin Michel), traces the lives of three generations from 1950 to the present day, moving from the peasantry to the university.
This former companion of the School of Brive – editorial label created in the 80s by Robert Laffont, with Claude Michelet -, s‘”annoyed” when we catalog it “local author”. Faithful to the Dordogne valley and the nearby Quercy where he was born, he rather points out his visceral attachment to “natural world”, At “cycle of the seasons”to “forests and rivers”like the Americans Jim Harrison, William Faulkner or Norman MacLean, “considered as peasant writers”. For his readers met in Brive, his narration “delicate and humble” Who “reminds of the life of grandparents” and their “life of labor”captive.
A reductive label
“Contempt” of the press “germanopratin” Or “vain classification of booksellers to place their novels on a display”? The regional label is a bit annoying for authors and publishers. “You have to put your feet down somewhere”, sighs Jean-Paul Malaval. This prolific writer whose intrigues “about ordinary lives” nourishes his inspiration in the “wide open spaces and countries of solitude which have kept traces of the past”, “without nostalgia” Or “psychoanalysis on the cheap”. “We are opposed to generalist, intellectual novelists? I don’t do branle-neu-neu”squeaks Ariégeois Georges-Patrick Gleize, author of rural thrillers anchored in current events and the Pyrenees.
All proudly display the loyalty of their readers “of all ages and backgrounds”. Because the literary segment, which is suffering from the graying of its readership and the disappearance of the France Loisirs distribution network, “maintains” according to the publishers, with “one million copies sold in all formats each year”according to Camille Lucet, deputy director of Calmann-Levy.
Protean genus
This publisher shares the market with Presses de la Cité and Albin Michel. Elise Fisher in Alsace-Lorraine, Françoise Bourdon in Provence, Didier Cornaille in Burgundy, Christian Laborie in the Cévennes, Joël Ragénès in Brittany: each region has its own figure, with works often republished and adapted for television. “We are not in Kleenex literature but in a beautiful popular and protean literature”, defends Clarisse Enaudeau, literary director of Presses de la Cité.
In recent years, the segment has undergone significant renewal. New pens are pouring into cozy and comforting detective stories (“cozy crime”) like Sylvie Baron in Cantal, Agathe Portail in Bordeaux, or Margot and Jean Le Moal between Brittany and Alsace. “The challenge is to retain new readers but clichés die hard”, judge Alexandra Pastéris Boucher, publisher and manager of the house De Borée, praising the enthusiasm of booksellers. New authors like Caroline Hussard (The Dog House) and Valériane Taront (Window onto Garden), awarded prizes for their first works, are indifferent to the categorization and are rather happy “not to be drowned in the jungle” of the literary season.