Becoming a Farmer Blaise Hofmann

An attempt to resolve one of the most widely shared loyalty conflicts of our times: our love-hate relationship with the farming world

“To be a farmer means working more than anyone else, earning less than anyone else and feeding people who believe you are poisoning them.” These are the words of a young woman farmer. They are not bitter words, but they reflect a paradox that the author knows all too well: he himself grew up on a farm and moved away from it to write books. Who better than a son and grandson of farmers to describe the twists and turns of this conflict of loyalty we are all faced with? For, deep down, each one of us has peasant roots and we all had this nagging thought that agriculture may well be poisoning us. Are farmers really the assassins pointed out by some urban people? Are they really doing their best to ensure that tomorrow’s agriculture will be reasonable and sustainable?

Far from any kind of radicalism, Blaise Hofmann investigates, gets people to talk, puts words on what should never be said in front of an environmentalist or a farmer, and draws a portrait of a farming world undergoing great changes and faced with great su ering – a portrait far removed from clichés or any kind of doublespeak. A literary document that attempts to bring together antagonistic points of view on the peasant world.

About the author

Blaise Hofmann (Switzerland 1978) is the author of a dozen novels and travel stories. In 2008, he received the Nicolas-Bouvier Prize at the Étonnants voyageurs festival in Saint-Malo for “Estive”. A columnist for various French-language Swiss newspapers, he also regularly writes plays and children’s books and produces his own wine.

• Already 4000 copies sold two months after the book release

• A beautiful tribute to the oldest job in the world

La Paix des ruches

Novel / 144 pages

Rights

WORLD FRENCH: Éditions Zoé

Rights sold

Japan

Iranian

Italian (Pagina Uno)

German (Lenos Verlag)

Mass market ppbk (L’Aire)