Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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A stowaway on a freighter threatens to impede the voyage of three Europeans. What will prevail, the desire to help him or the inclination to ignore any humane instinct and just get on with their trip? Aboard a freighter travelling between Europe and the Pacific, the discovery of a clandestine passenger creates a problem for three travelers who have paid their way. What should they do? Turn him in? Help him to attain his dream? Or just get rid of him? Their consciences stirred, relationships are formed, ones that involve each one’s past, but whatever their respective and fluctuating positions regarding this man who has no right to expect anything of them, the personal concerns of each take precedence over those of the man whose life is at stake. Leaning over the ocean mirror, Bohdan, Marek, and Josephine, all three of them loners, individuals at once complex and monstrously banal, heave the man into the sea, drowning as well their desires and their fears. This is a tale that explores a sadly familiar subject, the problem of clandestines and the inhuman treatment that sometimes leads to their simply being thrown overboard. Having spent several months on a freighter, the author is familiar with the unique ocean-going atmosphere that soon engulfs the reader’s imagination. From A COUNTRY WITH NO ENTRY “In the bay, the freighters at anchor turned their prows into the wind (….) From here, the stowaway could have swum to shore, it was still possible to throw him overboard from here” Quote from Le Monde des Livres of September 6, 2013 Isabelle Condou’s Un pays qui n' avait pas de port an instant favorite. – Cosmopolitan
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Plon has already published three works by Isabelle Condou: Il était disparu (2004), Solitude de l’aube (2007), and La Perrita (2009). This novel has been chosen by major French bookstore chains and was also awarded the “Grand prix des lecteurs du web” for the French novel.
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From Russia to the United States, the amazing destiny of a Russian aristocrat, the man who was Czar for a few hours after the abdication of Nicholas II, during the turbulent events of 1917. A gripping historical fresco that includes the great political and artistic figures of Europe leading up to the ‘20s and beyond: Rasputin, Nicholas II, Chanel, Cocteau, and more. The narrator is a member of the Russian imperial family living in exile. In the early 20th century, he lived through the troubled times that swept away the old world, participating in the grand dukes’ plot against Rasputin and his subsequent murder in December 1916. He tells of the preparations for the crime, the many visits to the Czar that encouraged the monk to let down his guard, and the ball on the ice of the frozen-over Neva just before Rasputin’s assassination. Then came the Revolution that would make him Czar for a few hours, at the abdication of Nicholas II. And his flight to Crimea, where he joined the ranks of the White Russian armies, determined to defeat the Revolutionaries at any cost. He tells of the insane actions of some of his superiors, who organized a hunt, riding to hounds with a Jewish revolutionary as prey. An abomination in which he participated, one that would haunt him all his life. Finally, he landed in France, in exile. Here, he divided his time between Paris and Biarritz, in the company of Anna de Noailles, Cocteau, Balthus, Chanel, and other well known figures. This rarefied milieu led him to meet an American actress whom he married, leaving Europe to live in the United States. In Europe, years passed and the Nazis took power in Germany, tempting him with promises to conquer Russia and put him back on the throne.
Born in 1972 in Paris, Jean-Félix de La Ville Baugé studied law and economics. Having spent years working in humanitarian associations (in Rwanda, Cambodia, Sudan, and Chechnya), for the past five years he has been director of the Franco-Russian newspaper and publishing house Le Courrier de Russie in Moscow. He has already published two novels, Entre deux cils (Plon 2002, Pocket 2004) and Votre fils (Plon 2004), and contributed to a short story anthology, Bonnes Vacances (Gallimard jeunesse, 2004).
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
This odyssey of a Grand Duke on a downhill slide is alternately feverish, poetic, noir, bloody, and burlesque. The turmoil of his times sweeps Wladimir Wladimirovitch along like a pebble in the depths of a torrent in this novel that is full of character – TéléZ
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When a long ago love affair of youth blooms anew at fifty, is it possible to resume such a passion with the same spontaneity and the same lack of ulterior motive one experienced at twenty? Milena and Louis were in love when they were in lycée and then lost touch. Many years later they meet again at a Book Fair. Louis has become an anthropologist and is the author of a bestseller about lovelife. Milena is a bookseller. They spend an evening together, see each other the next day, and begin to tell each other of their respective lives. For her, this involved moving to Martinique on a whim, then a disappointing marriage to a businessman from New York before she decided to return to France. For him, life was full of many journeys, many women, and a great love affair that was tragically destroyed by jealousy. They find themselves tempted to renew this old love, this time, perhaps, giving it every chance of turning out well. Their ostensibly banal stories and Louis’s perceptions as an anthropologist blend with questions about feelings of love and about sexuality. What do men, and women, really want? What role does the instinct of domination play, and where does possessiveness fit in? What can one attribute to feelings, and what to animal law? What does one really seek, beyond pleasure, in the union of two bodies? A simple story, with compelling flesh-and-blood characters one relates to, ultimately recognizing, over the pages, oneself.
Dominique Simonnet presents profound and sensitive observations of the impact of initial wounds along with a captivating reflection about the relations and desires of men and women. – L’Hebdo
Writer, journalist, editor, producer for radio and television, Dominique Simonnet was editor in chief of L’Express until 2007. He has written several essays, including the best-selling La Plus Belle Histoire du monde (conversations among Yves Coppens, Hubert Reeves and Joël de Rosnay – Seuil, 1996) and, more recently, 11 septembre, le jour du chaos (Perrin, 2011). With historian and political analyst Nicole Bacharan, he co-authored the Némo series of works that make science accessible to a broad public. He is also the author of a novel, L’Heure de pointe (Actes Sud, 2010).
! !! ) Van Gogh’s famous painting, “The Starry Night”, is the pretext of an intimate erotic and cultural exchange among three people whose passion for art and pleasure at being together help them to escape the world they find insipid and absurd. Behind closed doors, three beings who share their twilight romanticism. Kalf, an enigmatic writer. Victor, his Parisian publisher. And Claire, the lost love of one, the muse of the other. They are past sixty, she has just turned forty. They feel like exiles in a world where the heavens seem to have lost their stars. Their shared passion for art saves them, but at the same time it isolates them. Claire lives in Maussane, at the foot of the Alpilles, teaches art history and believes in God. Under a nom-de-plume, Kalf writes books where oblivion often confronts the absolute. Victor is a disillusioned aesthete. He lives vicariously through Claire, whom he worships, and Kalf, who fascinates him. Each of the three has his secrets, and his wounds as well. A trio of misfits, they drift like a frail barque on the ocean, from Lausanne to Vichy, from the Riviera to Biarritz, from the Virgins of Trecento to the visions of Nicolas De Staël, from sublime happiness to utterly bleak sadness. It is a love story with disturbing epilogues. A novel of social mores in whose compelling characters each of us recognizes elements of himself. What are the bonds between Claire and Kalf? Victor’s tale gives us the keys, and Claire’s throws light upon the mystery. By revealing their intimacy, they paint the world in which we live with a blend of confusion, irony, nostalgia and tenderness. They are pathetic, and they are afraid of being ridiculous. Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” seems to be their sole compass, but what Paradise will it take them to! Denis Tillinac has written over forty works—novels, essays, narrative accounts, biographies, poetry— and won several literary awards. La Nuit étoilée is the most profound work of this master of style. He invites us into his world, recalling the days when he was a Parisian publisher.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
It’s a love story with disturbing epilogs, a social novel filled with appealing characters that every reader can identify with. Denis Tillinac paints the world we live in with a mixture of dismay, irony, nostalgia, and tenderness. – Ouest France FRANKFURT 2013
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Through the story of David Martin, a novel which portrays the last days of the working class. At a time of dis-industrialisation, this novel offers a glimpse of a world that is little by little fading into the past. The Martin family lives in a little town in a working class valley in France. David is the youngest. The death of his late father is among the few the working class suffered during the turmoil of May 1968. Today, David is a disillusioned youth desperately seeking his path, deep within him a dull anger centered upon the ghost of his father, victim of a would-be revolution that wasn’t worth dying for. He is both annoyed with and sympathetic to the activism of his uncle, Alain, an idealistic union worker who apparently learned nothing from the failure of 68, believed the great day had finally arrived with the Socialist victory of 1981, has never had more trouble stretching his funds til the end of the month, and yet persists in organizing demonstrations, circulating petitions, and believing in “the collective”. André, David’s grandfather, is an artisan-mason whose skill allowed him to leave the factory, but who works outdoors, his hands in plaster, come rain or come shine. And Georges, his ancestor who lived through the events of 1936, lives in a retirement home. Among these rather archaic masculine figures, David grew to manhood. It is a world he is dying to flee. Two people inspire him as models, his Uncle Raymond, who is a successful businessman in Marseille, and Isabelle, an ambitious young woman who is preparing to go to university. David is capable of being drawn in either direction—Raymond’s path of easy money, where he might leave his soul and regret doing so, or Isabelle’s, with the underlying fear of being too much of a lightweight to succeed. And he senses deeply the bitterness of leaving this worn out world and the people he loves, casting both even more into the category of the historically outdated. A novel with much to say about our society and these times of change and modernization. An authentic social novel by a veritable craftsman of words. – Page What inspiration, what lucidity, what a capacity for distance ! – L’Humanité
A building contractor, several of Yves Turbergue’s works have been published by smaller publishing houses. Le Crépuscule d’un monde is his first novel published by one of national renown. He lives in Audincourt, in the Doubs.
, (+!)- $ The lucid and acid viewpoint of a heroine of our times as seen through the eyes of Clara B., whose eventful existence has been variously filled with rock ‘n’ roll, glossies, and political networking. Any resemblance to a known public figure is…simply a resemblance to a known public figure. In 2060, facing the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, the former top model and singer Clara B. decides to write her memoirs. Patrick Besson’s latest novel is a cross between Swift and the tabloid Voici, a work of pure fiction, of course, where any resemblance to persons living or dead is merely a coincidence!
Atypical iconoclastic writer Patrick Besson is the author of about forty novels. He was awarded the Grand prix de l’Académie française in 1985 and the Prix Renaudot in 1995. A member of the Prix Renaudot jury since 2000, he is also a literary critic possessed of a fearsome pen.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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,! , ( + God decides to dictate his biography, and it’s full of surprises! With a captivating style that appeals to a broad public, Pia Petersen constructs a novel around an audacious theme that can leave no one indifferent. God is among us. Depressed, disgusted, completely at sea, he cannot understand why men have turned away from him, nor why they are giving him other names. To right the situation, he decides to descend to earth, his purpose to have his biography written by a journalist he has carefully selected. Page after page, he is revealed in a light that is, to say the least, unusual. Chucking all the clichés, free of any and all religious dogma, this self-portrait of God offers an offbeat vision of human society, open to all questions, plunging into the physical and spiritual creation of a world that is in the process of losing its bearings. With a style that renders the transformation of myths into reality irresistible to the reader, this is a novel whose questions are far more important than its assertions.
Born in Copenhagen, Pia Petersen has chosen to write in French. At 47, she is already the author of a dozen or so novels, including Une livre de chair (2011) and Un écrivain, un vrai (2013), both published by Editions Actes Sud. Already acclaimed by both critics and booksellers, her talent is an asset to Plon’s literary image, one we are proud to publish!
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A child living in France and an older doctor living in Iceland share the same strange dream, both haunted by the image of a man falling from a balcony. And yet, they are strangers to one another. Annecy. Emilie is a loner, a child who lives in the imaginary world she herself has created. And she is troubled by something she cannot define that is missing in her life. One day she paints a picture of a man falling from a balcony. She has no idea where this image comes from, but it upsets her parents considerably. They seem to take refuge in silence, but Emilie decides to find out why. Iceland, Reykjavik peninsula. Doctor Robert Repac, sexagenarian, has fled France and come to live in the land of volcanos. The calm of his humdrum existence is broken by two unexpected events, the impromptu visit of his ex-wife and a persistent dream, that of a man falling from a balcony. Looking for answers, Emilie is shocked to discover that her parents lied to her about her birth: she was, in fact, born after her father’s death, and the man who has raised her is not her real father. Meanwhile, shaken by the visit of his former spouse, Robert gradually comes to confront the ghosts of his past—that of Mathilde, the woman he once loved in silence, and of Louis, his best friend and Mathilde’s fiancé, who died in dreadful circumstances. After years of exile, he decides to return to France and try to find the woman to whom he never dared confess his feelings. And to ask her to forgive him. What is the mysterious bond between Emilie and Robert? Why are both possessed by the same dream? What is the source of the soul-crushing guilt the old man bears? And how will their encounter transform them? Marie Charrel is a journalist who grew up in Annecy and Grenoble and the laureate of three prestigious awards of her profession, the Prisma, Bayard and Ajis prizes. She is the author of a first novel, Une fois ne compte pas, which garnered the acclaim of booksellers in France and has been published in paperback by Pocket. She lives in Paris.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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After having successfully dealt with feminine taboos, Delphine de Malherbe takes on the masculine mystery in this breathtaking yet tender psychological thriller that explores the depths of the hidden truth of men. Franck Steiner is a researcher, busily absorbed in probing the influence of the global economic crisis on our lives, until the day he finds his own existence plunged into chaos. In swift succession, he runs into an enlightened nymphomaniac who brings out all his forbidden desires, a businessman who reveals to him his dark side, a sainted women who forces him to confront his values and her child, who is addicted to social networking and exposes a tendency to live vicariously through others. In the storm of this global crisis that becomes his own, will he realize, as one discovers his own cowardice or courage in times of war, what kind of man he has turned out to be? What will he find out about men in general? His own nature is gradually revealed in a profound tale of burning suspense.
Delphine de Malherbe is the noted author of two autofictions, La Femme Interdite (Lattès, 2006) and La Fille à la Vodka (Plon, 2012), as well as L’aimer ou le fuir, a sensual narrative about Colette (Plon, 2011). A multi-talented writer, she adapted and directed “Une passion: Anaïs Nin-Henry Miller”, inspired by Anaïs Nin’s journal, presented at the Théâtre Marigny in 2010. She was also the director of “Inconnu à cette adresse”, in which several of the finest actors took turns in the lead roles. Presented at the Théatre Antoine in 2012, the drama met tremendous critical success and was chosen “Best Play of the Year 2013” at the Globes de Cristal.
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A Parisian journalist investigates the story of his father, a Russian jazz trumpeter, and thus crosses history, capital H, from New York of the roaring 20s to the gulags of Kolyma, all the way to the intimate conversations of Joseph Stalin. Journalist and special correspondent, at fifty, Gabriel Linhardt lives in Paris. A guitar player, he loves jazz and sometimes performs in the bars of the capital in his off hours. One day, he receives a letter from an attorney in New York that will turn his life upside-down. An old uncle, living in New York and now on his deathbed, asks to see him. For this only child, whose family consists of just his parents—French communists—the shock is enormous. In New York, Gabriel learns that he was adopted, and that his real father was in fact the great Russian jazz trumpeter, Edouard “Eddie” Grynberg. His mother was a beautiful dancer, Elsa, and the two Jewish artists performed in Paris and in Moscow, where they finally took refuge from the Nazis. Eddie Grynberg was also the toast of the town in New York, where he met the Duke and Satchmo, before going on to play for the Soviet upper crust, including Stalin. Until the day when Jdanov relegated «American» jazz to the dustbin of degenerate art. In a nightmare scenario, Elsa was swallowed up into the cellars of the NKVD, while Grynberg was sent to the gulag. Incapable of going on without Elsa, Eddie let himself die after having given his only property—a trumpet engraved with an inscription in Hebrew--to Lev Andreyevitch, an Ukranian common law prisoner with whom he had become friends, begging him to swear he would find Elsa and the child she had brought into the world, so that he would receive his meager inheritance. Correspondent of AFP news agency in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, Patrick Anidjar is the author of an essay on Iran’s nuclear aspirations (La Bombe iranienne, Editions du Seuil, 2008). He is currently an assistant editor in chief at the l’AFP and lives in Paris.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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A new adventure for the Venitian prince and antique dealer Aldo Morosini, whose life is turned upside down with the discovery of three exceptional rubies dating from the 15th century. On March 2nd, 1476, the Swiss compel Charles the Bold, the all-powerful Duc de Bourgogne, to abandon his camp at Grandson, leaving his fabulous wealth behind. Perhaps the most valuable jewel of this treasure is his pearl-embroidered parade hat, whose clasp at the crown is composed of exceptional gemstones arranged on a row of pearls: three rubies, known as “The Three Brothers”, and a huge triangular blue diamond called “The Great Diamond of Burgundy”. Destined to die at the gates of Nancy on January 5th, 1477, Charles the Bold will never again see this clasp, which he cherishes as a talisman. Five centuries later, these four stones will cause no end of problems for Aldo Morisini and his gang. It all begins with the visit of his notary, and a scene in the church of Saint-Augustin, in Paris. Volume 2 to be published spring 2014. The works of Juliette Benzoni have attracted a broad and loyal public (an average of 30,000 copies sold for each work published). Considered today as the Queen of the French historical novel, among her books are Le Boiteux de Varsovie, La Florentine, Marie les intrigues, Marie des passions, La Perle de l’Empereur, Les Larmes de Marie-Antoinette, Le Jeu de l’Amour et la Mort, Secrets d’Etat, L’Anneau d’Atlantide, the Le Bal des poignards series, La Chimère d’or des Borgia, La Collection Kledermann and the La Guerre des duchesses series.
Paris, 2 December 1851. Etienne Sombre, a printer, witnesses the coup d’état of Napoleon III. The campaign of repression in full swing, he makes contact with a small group determined to overthrow the tyrant, the Society of Invisibles. It is late in 1851, and the climate in France is one of tension. Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, the princepresident, is seeking the second term forbidden by the constitution, and a coup d’état is in the air. Etienne Sombre lives in Paris and works at a printing press. Recently, he witnessed a very strange event when, passing near the Forbes watchmakers on an evening stroll, he was nearly killed by a tremendous explosion that leveled the building. Then, on December 2, 1851, Napoleon III pulls off his carefully orchestrated coup d’état. Despite the threat of the military presence, Etienne refuses to support Bonaparte’s proclamation of the end of the Republic. His worker’s permit confiscated, he is no longer allowed to work. Without means, he goes into hiding and tries to survive in a Paris rife with civil strife between republicans and the forces of order. During a riot, Etienne finds the billfold of an insurgent who has been killed, inside it a worker’s permit and a letter addressed to one Emilie Simon. In order to work, Etienne takes on the dead man’s identity and thus comes into contact with the Invisibles, a secret society ready to take up arms to overthrow Bonaparte. This wonderfully crafted novel creates a strange crepescular atmosphere. Beyond the historical dimension, a climate of the phantasmagoric reigns, an air of the strange and bizarre underlining that of the era, enchanting for the contemporary reader. Jean-Baptiste Evette is the author of three novels published by Gallimard: Jordan Fantosme (1997, Prix René Fallet), Rue de la femme sans tête (2002) and Les Spadassins (2007). He has also written several novels for youth.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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LONG-LISTED FOR THE PRIX RENAUDOT 2013 In this Dictionnaire amoureux de Marcel Proust, the two authors split the task, Raphaël Enthoven minutely and textually exploring À la recherche du temps perdu, and Jean-Paul Enthoven the variations on Proust himself. For each entry, the authors have also decided to refrain from going over once again the classic aspects of Proustism (several admirably complete dictionaries already exist which address the subject) but to point out the bizarre things, the “angles”, the heretofore uncommented “curiosa”. From “A as in Agony” to “Z as in Zinedine de Guermantes”, from “Datura” to “Rhinogoménol” and “Kabbale” to “Asparagus”, from “Plotin” to “Schopenhauer” or “Walter Benjamin”, they obviously enjoy discussing Proust, whom both have always revered, in terms of his biography as much as his literary genius, and each of their reflections adds to the fascinating substance of their text. Those who are Proustians at heart will be amply satisfied, as will intellectual Proustians. Several extracts of correspondence and of the actual works are reprinted in this mischievous and erudite dictionary for lovers, a work as scholarly as it is amusing. NOVEMBER 2013 Centenary celebration of the publication of Du côté de chez Swann, the first volume of À la recherche du temps perdu.
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Why buy this book? Many events will center around Proust in the coming year, drawing attention to this Dictionary.
Jean-Paul Enthoven is a writer, editor, and literary columnist at Le Point. Among his published works are two essays (Les Enfants de Saturne and La Dernière Femme) and three novels (Aurore, Ce que nous avons eu de meilleur and L’Hypothèse des sentiments). Raphaël Enthoven studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and holds an agrégation in philosophy. Professor, producer of the programme “Le Gai Savoir” on France-Culture radio, he is the author of L’Endroit du décor and Le Philosophe de service et autres texets (Gallimard) and Un jeu d’enfant (Fayard). His most recent work is Matière première (Gallimard, 2013).
Outstanding in several ways, the two authors are media personalities and can count on influential networks of support in the written and audiovisual press.
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Thanks to the subjective approach of Franck Ferrand, the “myth” of Versailles springs to life again. Of all the world’s palaces, Versailles is probably the one that has inspired the greatest number of conventional–and often inaccurate–works. With his personal and didactic approach, Franck Ferrand’s subjective interpretation gives the reader a fresh new look, a rediscovery of this splendid treasure of the past. The château, its décor, its vast gardens, the domain all appear here in an entirely new light, recapturing their innate exuberance and revealing the “court spirit” that was born here long ago. Franck Ferrand reviews the conventional bibliography of works on Versailles, compares the palace of today with that of yesterday, and explores the concepts of grandeur and symmetry. He examines the imperfections of its architecture, but also its forgotten feats, the hidden beauty and flaws of history. Through his intimate and practical familiarity with the legendary palace, the author resuscitates not only a fascinating and unique civilisation, much misunderstood when judged by today’s standards, but the «myth» of Versailles, which comes to life again through photography, song, theatre, cinema and television. Ever since childhood, Franck Ferrand has been fascinated by this château and its gardens. After postgraduate studies on the court of Louis XV, he wrote several articles on the domain and a monograph on its modern destiny, Ils ont sauvé Versailles (Perrin, 2003), reprinted in paperback as Versailles après les rois (Tempus, 2011), and a biography of the curator in chief, Gérald Van der Kemp, Un gentilhomme à Versailles (Perrin, 2005). He has been a member of the Amis de Versailles since 1990 and an associate member of the Académie de Versailles since 2005. Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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This dictionary is the address book of the Devil’s ancestors and relatives: wicked gods, demons, spirits of the departed and of their emanations, vampires and werewolves. It presents as well the thinkers, the writers, the painters and musicians who evoke the Devil, and the philosophers and theologians who have studied him. After centuries and centuries of evil spirits and tormenting demons, Christianity invented the Devil, heir to the Serpent and the Satan of the Bible. We owe the Devil a debt of gratitude, for he assumes responsibility for the Evil, in life and in history, which is actually the work of the diabolical human race. Demons and the Devil have never ceased to haunt us. We may believe in them, we may not, but the clever demon even takes advantage of non-believers, proving, along with Dostoyevsky and Baudelaire, that he is all the more powerful when he does not exist. Between superstition, religion, and reality, he takes on every role—executioner, victim, fantasy, temptation, sin, pleasure and misfortune. He is evoked, described, pictured, and made to speak and sing. One may doubt his existence, but writers, poets, artists and musicians evoke his flesh and-blood presence. God is his accomplice, Hell his kingdom, and he appears in life, in History, and in culture. He is hunted and celebrated in witch hunts and the demonization of all one may fear. And there are even those who worship him. Today, we fight him, exorcise him, or adore him. From the most conservative of Catholics to the Satanists, true believers in his existence abound, and for those who doubt, human evil is there to remind us of him. From A to Z, here is the fascinating cultural world haunted by the Spirit of Evil.
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Paul Robert’s main collaborator, Alain Rey has been writing and directing Editions Robert’s various dictionaries since 1964. Le Petit Robert, Le Grand Robert de la langue française (9 vol.), Le Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Le Dictionnaire culturel all bear his mark. He is also the author of a number of works devoted to language and words. Alain Rey has truly dedicated over a half a century to the service of words.
# +9). The most densely populated country of the globe, China is on the cutting edge of what awaits us all and therefore more than ever, as André Malraux once said, “the second pole of human experience”. Complex, incongruous, ancient, in many ways baroque, China is as disconcerting a country as it is fascinating. For thousands of years, its amiable people have somehow managed to organize themselves so as to avoid the chaos that constantly threatens overpopulated societies. Today, China is a land of paradox, Chinese and capitalist, kind and brutal, generous and voracious—Yin and Yang, quite naturally. The very best stands beside the worst, as is the case everywhere, and yet more than everywhere else because everything in China is beyond the limits of the norm, like the number of its inhabitants. In this fascinating work, José Frèches seeks to make the reader love «his” China, this continent undergoing transformation, divided between the weight of its immense past and the promise of a future fueled by its economic power and the emergence of a middle class. Full of historical references as well as anecdotes of his own experience, Frèches’s narrative is above all amusing and sincere, dominated by the tender irony with which he has always approached China. From his introduction to the country on his first trip there, in 1972, until the present, China has undergone a more profound change than that which marked the five thousand years between the first Chinese state and the communists’ advent to power. Born in 1950, trained as a sinologist and art historian, former curator of the Musée Guimet, José Frèches has written several historical novels set in China, including Le Disque de Jade, L’Impératrice de la Soie, L’Empire des larmes, and Les Dix Mille Désirs de l’empereur, all of which have sold over a million copies worldwide. Commissaire général de la France at the Shanghai World Expo of 2010, he designed and managed the French pavilion that, with an attendance of over ten million, was the most visited of all. José Frèches is one of France’s finest connoisseurs of China, both ancient and modern.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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“God is dead?” Not at all. And neither are the gods. Apart from Greece and Rome, I have chosen those I prefer of the five continents, from Japan, Siberia, Australia, the Samoan islands, and even a few cruel Aztec divinities. For a third of humanity, the gods are alive and well. They are capricious, charming, angry, and rapscallion—big children. In India, three hundred million gods and godesses combat and copulate in joyous frenzy. In Africa, genies, djinns, and vodouns root humans to their soil, and yet the slave trade has made them travel all the way to America. In China, a heroic builder limps because he sacrificed half his body to the Yellow River. I have loved them since I was a child. Apart from Greece and Rome, I chose the ones I prefer of the five continents, even adding a few cruel Aztec divinities to make one wonder about the human race. I love the gods because they are innovative. Zeus and Shiva practice assisted reproduction and change their forms, becoming animal, sometimes rain or then again stone, a swan or a lecherous ascetic. As for the goddesses, mother’s milk crosses the stars, filth does wonders, blood has children, and sticking the tongue out is a lethal act. Although…. A close look at our singular God, whether he is called Adonai, Jesus, or Allah, all have been inoculated with a bit of the substance of those supposedly dead or far-off gods. This is what gods and goddesses are for, to become flesh, to give body. God is dead? Not at all. And neither are the gods. !
Catherine Clément, philosopher and novelist, has a degree from the Ecole normale supérieure and has been successively a lecturer at the Sorbonne (before 1968), head of the Culture section at the former Parisian paper Le Matin, and Director of Artistic Action at the Ministère des Affaires étrangères, and has occupied diplomatic posts for twelve years in India, Austria, and Senegal. Currently assigned to the Université populaire at the Musée du quai Branly, her works include Le Voyage de Théo, Pour l’amour de l’Inde and La Senora.
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Unique in the vast area it covers, this dictionary is an actual encyclopaedia of secularism. There are many reasons to love secularism today. It is the thing that defines the legal and political framework that allows men who share neither the same spiritual convictions nor the same traditions to live together. At a time when very diverse populations mix and blend in national communities as in melting pots, it has become imperative to find the means to support diversity without relinquishing unity. Secularism has a remarkable capacity to do so. This dictionary gathers elements of reflection relative to the clear meaning of the secular ideal and the stakes involved. Driven by a strong conviction, it mobilizes history, law, philosophy, theology and sociology. The dictionary proposes four types of articles: major concepts, key figures, outstanding events, and moving texts, with commentary, collected in an anthology of secular thought. The burning questions of secularism in the 21st century are inscribed here in the profundity of classical culture. A general index, located at the end of the volume, facilitates reading and research.
Writer, PhD, lecturer at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Henri Pena-Ruiz was a member of the Stasi Commission on secularism in the Republic. His publications on secularism won the Prix de l’Instruction publique in 2000. He is also the author of works on Marx and on the great legends of thought.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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Produced in collaboration with the Château de Versailles, À la table de Marie-Antoinette takes our taste buds on a journey back in time, to the idyllic setting of the Hameau de la Reine and the Petit Trianon, where the queen enjoyed living in rarefied (and immensely refined) simplicity. 40 recipes, sweet and salty. They remind us of a singular queen who sought desperately to escape the ponderous etiquette and the confining protocol of Versailles by creating her own little terrestrial paradise, the Hameau. It consisted of about ten little houses that contained her apartments, but also a kitchen, a dairy, a sheepfold, an ornamental pond filled with carp and broche, and ewes, lambs, and other farm animals. It was walking distance from the Petit Trianon, the other masterpiece decorated by Marie-Antoinette, and the whole made up the domaine du Hameau, conceived in the Rousseauesque spirit that was much in vogue, combining purity and sobriety with communion with nature. Michèle Villemur has imagined dishes that would correspond to Marie-Antoinette’s culinary tastes: 11 savoury dishes, both rich and lean, 14 main dishes to please the palette, and fruits and sweets, with 15 irresistible desserts, including macaroons! " #
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The work is punctuated with historical anecdotes collected by Béatrix Saule, General Director of the Musée National des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, who has also written the book’s preface. A photo of each dish accompanies the recipe, with added photos of recent and original views of the Hameau and the Petit Trianon. Cultural journalist and gastronomical columnist Michèle Villemur lives in Paris. She has written several culinary books. A great lover of travel as well as cuisine, Michèle Villemur teaches at the Paris campus of Trinity College.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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On the occasion of the centenary of her birth, THE biography of reference on Duras, by one of her most intimate friends. To what can one attribute the continuing fascination with the life and work of Marguerite Duras? Born in 1914 in colonial Indochina, she experienced the major upheavals of the century at their very heart, from the troubled period of the Occupation and her involvement with communism to the ultraleft movements post-1968. She has always represented the voice of rebellion and revolt, scandalizing many with the violence of her commitments and her passions. But Marguerite Duras’s life cannot be contemplated as detached from the very thing that kept her going, a work indefatigably begun anew, as though the weight of demanding destiny condemned her to the dangers of writing. In reconstructing this existence, the sole product of the work, Alain Vircondelet gives the reader the insight to comprehend the painful dimension and the absolute necessity to create of a great writer, as he examines the secret of her writing with the intensity it compels.
Avril 2014 Centenary celebration of Marguerite Duras’ birth
Writer and academic, Alain Vircondelet is best known for his biographical works, which have been translated the world over. Considered “one of the finest biographers of his generation” (ParisMatch), he has written works on the lives of Saint-Exupéry, Albert Camus, Blaise Pascal, Rimbaud, Balthus, and many other figures of literature and spirituality, beginning with Marguerite Duras, the very first biography of whom he has completed today for Editions Plon. His recent publications include Albert Camus, fils d’Alger, Prix Méditerranée de l’essai (Fayard, 2010), Saint-Exupéry. Histoires d’une vie (Flammarion, 2012) and Des amours de légende (Plon, 2013).
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François II, Mary Stuart, Louis XIII and Louis XIV were all child monarchs. Eve de Castro offers the fascinating story of these extraordinary individual destinies which all began at the founding moments of both their reigns and their childhoods. One does not choose to be king, one is born to the task, whether initially or when the vicissitudes of succession force even the youngest of a family to mount the throne. At three days, five, nine, or fifteen years of age, fate delivers an extraordinary gift, one that is often poisonous. This work is not an exhaustive biographical study of the early years of the above monarchs; rather it casts light on a particular moment of the childhood of each, a moment when tragic circumstances forced the child to become the incarnation of the king (or queen), of a crystallization of his personality in which the seeds of the man his reign would reveal were sown. How would the long and craftily-planned assassination of his mother’s lover, Concino Concini, Maréchal de l’Ancre, affect Louis XIII, then just thirteen? At twelve, how did Louis XIV stand up, after an interminable night of feigned sleep, fully dressed and with his boots on beneath the counterpane, as the rioters stomped past his bed to make sure he had no intention of fleeing? In these times, we have come to treasure childhood as a carefree time of innocence, one devoid of responsibilities. When one is forced by destiny to be a monarch, can one ever really be a child? SEPTEMBER 26
Eve de Castro is a writer and screenwriter. Among her published works are Ayez pitié du cœur des hommes (Lattès), Prix des libraires 1992, Bâtard du Soleil (Orban, Pocket), Le Peseur d’âmes (Albin Michel) and, more recently, Le Roi des Ombres (Robert Laffont).
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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So you think you know everything about the series? This work offers the ultimate explanation, decoding the actions of their most symbolic heroes. Now you can find out why you can’t live without Dexter, Lynette Scavo, or Dr House. And from now on, you’ll never again see the series in the same light! In the last fifteen years, television series have evolved from mere entertainment to a phenomenon of society. From simple figures of fiction, their characters and their convoluted psyches have become the latest bait of producers ever attempting to expand their viewing audience. What techniques of identification are used to create this feeling of empathy of the spectator towards his chosen hero? What do these characters awake in all of us? Why do we care for them, to the point that we have the impression of having lost dear friends when the series comes to a close? In answer to all these questions, Aurélie Blot takes an in-depth look at these hero-characters, those we identify with, those who both horrify and attract us, those we have always wanted to be without ever admitting it to ourselves. From the band of Friends with whom we’d all like to be buddies to the heroes of Grey’s Anatomy, in whom each finds his alter ego, from Bree van de Kamp, a Desperate Housewife in all her glory, to the saucy heroines of Sex and the City, not to mention Dexter, who inspires our hidden instincts to see justice done, or Dr House, who says out loud what everyone else merely thinks—all of them pass in review here. Specialist on contemporary American civilization, Aurélie Blot teaches at the university level. Her research is essentially devoted to sitcoms and television series. Martin Winckler, author of the preface, is a doctor, the celebrated author of La Maladie de Sachs, and a specialist on television series as well.
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For the first time, Edgar Morin, 92, and his wife Sabah tell of the way they met, their improbable couple, and, most of all, of the love that transcends all differences. An exhilarating narrative! In 2009, Edgar Morin was 88 years old and had been widowed for a year. The improbable «hit him over the head» in the course of a music festival in Morocco. It was love at first sight, the awakening of emotions one feels only as an adolescent. A crazy and passionate love! Sabah Abouessalem is a sociologist. In 1979, at 20, she discovered Edgar Morin through his works and was enraptured with his ideas. In 2009, she felt the hand of the father of complex thought rest upon her own. “I’ll let you go when you give me your phone number.” Edgar and Sabah married just a few months later. “An improbable love”’, they both agree. A crazy love that they describe in this intimate and sometimes indiscreet book written by four hands. “I have the exhibitionism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, she has the discretion of Madame de La Fayette”, is Moran’s excuse. Beyond their story, beyond their exchanged e-mails, they share their reflections on a love that is capable of transcending all differences—age, religion, and culture. For, at the heart of it, what is love?
Edgar Morin, sociologist and philosopher, was born in Paris in 1921. He developed the concept of «complex thought» that is recognized today the world over. Several Latin American universities as well as a chair at UNESCO bear his name. Sabah Abouessalem, his wife, was born in Marrakech in 1959. She is a former lecturer at Paris-I, where she created and directed a Diplôme d’études supérieures spécialisées (DESS) on the problems of local planning in developing countries. She teaches in Morocco, where she continues her research on poverty and the problems of urban governance in the countries of the South.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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A fascinating dialogue between a Cardinal and an atheist philosopher that treats the great questions of human existence, each basing his discourse on values he believes may enrich the reflections of the other. How does the message of Jesus remain a contemporary one in our modern secular society? Cardinal Ravasi and Luc Ferry share their interrogations and offer their views on belief and nonbelief, on the radical question marks that surround life and death, truth and mendacity, love and pain, good and evil. On the one hand the Cardinal, a man of faith, offers a magnificent overview of the great considerations of Christianity centered on the theme of “believe and understand” (believe first, in order then to be able to understand). To his way of thinking, true theology rests upon a watershed between two sources of oblivion one must avoid: on the one hand, an approach based only on history, the factual and rational and philosophic, and on the other, a willfully irrational mysticism, a mystic enthusiasm. His opposite, the philosopher, a “gentile”, wonders about the considerable importance of what remains of the Gospel for those who, like himself, have lost their faith. He studies the universality of love in Christ’s message, the role of the Devil and of Evil in the discourse of the Church, the indispensable complementarity between faith and reason, the essence of secularism, the personification of the divine, and the concepts of resurrection and death. What blooms in this surprising dialogue, the intersection of two points of view and reflection, is neither a superposition nor a mutual rejection. On the contrary, the visions of the philosopher and the Cardinal form a captivating diptych.
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Philosopher, former Minister of National Education, Luc Ferry is the author of several best sellers, including Apprendre à vivre (Plon, 2006), La Sagesse des mythes (Plon, 2008), and La Révolution de l’amour (Plon, 2010). Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi is head of the Pontifical Council for Culture. On the initiative of Pope Benedict XVI, he developed the “court of gentiles”, days of exchange and dialogue between believers and non-believers.
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A native of the New World, Francis, the first Jesuit Pope in history, intrigues and fascinates above and beyond Catholic circles. With a free-spirited tone, Caroline Pigozzi, a Vatican specialist, and Henri Madelin, a respected Jesuit and former French Provincial, reveal the different aspects of this 265th successor to Peter. Caroline Pigozzi has been following Jorge Mario Bergoglio since his arrival in Rome to his election as Supreme Pontiff. She traveled to the Pope’s native Argentina where she investigated the people and priests closest to him. She accompanied the Pope onboard the official jet during his inaugural trip to Brazil and questioned him about the Jesuits. At the Vatican, she was a special guest for his private mass. These two very complementary authors reveal an intensely moving, charismatic and political person, and always surprising, even in private. Behind this unprecedented portrait is the astonishing adventure of the Jesuits in history. Thanks to a very thorough investigation in the field, Father Madelin’s bold “confessions”, a unique presentation of former Jesuit students, and an exceptional series of photos, “As He Does It” reveals the personality of this Pope, a reformer from beyond the sea. JESUIT, ARGENTINE… AND POPE. THE TRUE PERSONALITY OF FRANCIS.
Caroline Pigozzi is a senior writer for Paris Match and Religion specialist for Europe1. She is the author of best-sellers Le Pape en privé (Nil Edition), Jean-Paul II intime (Robert Laffont) translated in 8 languages, and recipient of the Vermeil medal from the Académie Française, Ambassadeurs de Dieu (DDB), Les Robes Rouges (DDB/Plon) and Le Vatican indiscret (Plon, 2012 - 35,000 copies already sold and translated into Italian, Russian, Polish). Henri Madelin, Jesuit, was a lecturer at Sciences Po and teaches at the Centre Sèvres in Paris. After running the magazine Études, he is now an advisor for the Jesuit Service for European Issues in Brussels and in Strasbourg. He is the author of Refaire l’Europe (Le Rocher), Si tu crois (Bayard), Jeunes sans rivages (DDB), Sous le soleil de Dieu (Bayard), Dieu et César (DDB) and Les chrétiens entrent en politique (Cerf).
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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Didier van Cauwelaert offers a panorama of the most amazing phenomena, facts that seem at first glance logically impossible and yet have an explanation, backed up by scientific proof. A chick that attracts a robot solely using the power of thought. A host that levitates during a televised Mass. A tree that moves, entirely on its own power. A machine capable of conversing with insects. A military man who creates a detailed picture of a secretly-constructed enemy submarine that is ten thousand kilometres away. A member of the Resistance who escapes talking under Nazi torture by practicing bilocation. A priori, all these things seem impossible, and yet all of them, and others the author presents in this unusual dictionary, have been observed, described, and authenticated by trustworthy individuals, scientific researchers equipped with instruments to measure them. Didier van Cauwelaert pushes back the limits of the unimaginable from A to Z. From the psychic powers of the bee to the rational fabrication of zombies, from A as in Abandon (victory by) to Z as in Zola (the double miracle inflicted upon Emile), with discernment and curiosity, he joyously offers the reader the opportunity to vastly expand the realm of things possible. And his exploration of these amazing phenomena changes our perception of ourselves and all that surrounds us, encourages our re-enchantment with the world, while exploring its behind-the-scenes aspects where, just behind the curtain, crafty schemes, disinformation, mental manipulation, selective perception, conspiracies of silence, and deliberate bluffing reign supreme. Didier van Cauwelaert’s popularity has grown with every successive literary prize he has earned. Prix Del Duca for his first novel in 1982, Prix Goncourt and Prix Nimier for Un aller simple in 1994, he is also the laureate of the Prix Science de la Vulgarisation Scientifique for his work L’Apparition in 2002. His latest novel is La Femme de nos vies (Albin Michel, 2013).
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The dialogue between a linguist and a physician. Are language and science at antipodes? Disjointed fragments of our culture? In competing spheres at school? No! Not at all, on the contrary, they are twin sisters, unfailingly complicit. This is the story of these twins, told by the intermingled pens of Alain Bentolila, linguist, and Yves Quéré, physicist. Science, a discourse on nature and the narrative of what we perceive of the world, was born and evolved hand in hand with language. From the creation of words to the architecture of the sentence, language played the role of refining its rigor and its logic, promoting an actually scientific way of thinking--as archaic as it may have been at the very beginning. And thus was born reason. The twin sisters have allowed Man to progress in the comprehension and mastery of the world around him. Their complicity is such that we cannot present one, to children in particular, without referring to— and revering--the other. And both of them, constituent parts of our culture, suggest the order of priority which becomes “Read, write, count…reason”.
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Alain Bentolila is a professor of linguistics at the Université de Paris-Descartes who has devoted his career to the description of language in general and French in particular. A renowned specialist on the learning of oral and written language, he has created an international network to prevent illiteracy. He is, notably, the author of De l’illettrisme en général et de l’école en particuler (Plon, 1996, Grand prix de l’Académie française, 1997) and of Le Verbe contre la barbarie (Odile Jacob, 2007). Yves Quéré is a physicist, former Directeur de l’Enseignement of the Ecole polytechnique, and a member of the Académie des sciences. He was elected president of the IAP, which is the Assembly of Academies of Science worldwide. Among his works are La Science institutrice (Odile Jacob, 2002), Les Enfants et la Science, co-authored with Georges Charpak and Pierre Léna (Odile Jacob, 2005), and Doubles croches (Le Pommier, 2010).
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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Alimentary scandals are legion, for the lack of transparency of food production chains is staggering. This is a precise and fascinating book that helps the reader to regain confidence as he discovers the mechanisms of food supply, a far cry from popular assumptions and the press releases provided by the lobbies. Will the next crisis of confidence affect all that is “bio”? Will vegetable oils be the target of the next alimentary scandal? Is fear of cholesterol the rip-off of the century? Will fruits and vegetables one day be singled out as dangerous for the planet? Is fish a source of heavy metals or synthetic hormones? If all these questions are serious ones, it is because there are signs that the agroalimentary chain is sliding out of control. Examples abound, from horse-meat lasagne to vegetarian dishes full of palm oil, not to mention eggs containing dioxin and killer soybean sprouts. If we take apart the entire chain, from producer to consumer, one is sometimes tempted to conclude that fasting is the only way to escape the effects of an alimentary production that has gotten out of hand.
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And yet, solutions exist. New methods of production and distribution are being established, and new means of communication concerning the origin of products could also be available to the citizenconsumer. Foods could escape wild promotion campaigns that ruin worth and confidence, and the consumer could also access information about their origins and virtues through an analytical “identity card”. The food chains of the future must respect both the health of the planet and that of its inhabitants. Our alimentary future remains to be imagined and reconstructed. And set up. Fast! A scientist, agricultural engineer, and businessman, Pierre Weill has been working for over 20 years on the correlations between methods of agricultural production, health, and the environment. In particular, he has participated in the elaboration of several clinical studies demonstrating the effects of environment upon human health. He has jointly signed several articles in the scientific press with a review panel that includes INRA or CNRS researchers. He is the author of Tous gros demain? (translated into Korean and German) and Mon assiette, ma santé, ma planète (translated into Chinese), published by Plon in 2007 and 2010 respectively, works that have been widely acclaimed by both the scientific community and a vast public.
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The first work about «good» cravings, or how to use them to give our lives meaning and attain our dreams. There may be many books about the loss of desire, depression, inhibitions, or excessive cravings and addictions, but none seem to concern our “good” desires, those that build our loves, our vocations, our sense of humor and of the serious. What do our desires say about us? How can we rediscover lost desires? How can one who wants nothing be motivated? Why is it that everything I want is dangerous for me? No one understands my desires. How can I get rid of the craving to drink or to smoke? I have a great plan, but where can I find the courage to achieve it? Michel Lejoyeux responds to all these questions with pragmatism, giving new meaning to our desires so that they can actually becoming a driving force in our lives.
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Professor at the Université Denis Diderot, Michel Lejoyeux is head of the service of psychiatry and addictology at the Hôpital Bichat in Paris. He has written several works, including Les Secrets de nos comportements : le libre arbitre existe-t-il ? (Plon, 2009) and Changer… en mieux (Plon, 2011), all of which have found a vast public.
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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The story of Kudsi Erguner, the Ney player, his religious awakening, his first steps in Sufi spirituality, his ongoing commitment to preserve his cultural roots. An original autobiography that is both a coming-of-age tale and a perceptive and subtle commentary on the actual state of Sufiism. “If Sufiism is a barque, religion is the ocean”, Kudsi Erguner writes in reference to this form of spirituality, born in the first century of Islam, which in its very essence is inseparable from the Muslim religion. In 1925 the Turkish government condemned the practices of the Sufi brotherhoods and ordered them to close their “Tekke”, or convents; before that time, to become a Sufi meant belonging to a Sufi community and being taught by one of its masters, the “sheikh”s. Today, the government promotes public ceremonies with performances by supposedly Sufi dancers and musicians, exploiting this culture to encourage “mystic tourism”. Beyond Turkey’s borders, the author points out, Sufi thought has experienced a veritable boom in renewed interest. There have never been so many “masters” who claim to be the heirs of Sufi thought, and yet “all those the Turks recognize as Sufis are lying”, for once the Tekke were closed, the true masters could only pass on their teachings in clandestine settings, hence necessarily with very small groups of the faithful. Written by a direct descendant of one of the last Sufis belonging to a traditional community, impelled by a will to transmit a spiritual, literary, and artistic culture which is profoundly rich, this book takes us along the paths of thought which threaten to disappear entirely. Kudsi Erguner, Muslim erudite and veritable virtuoso of the Ney– the end-blown reed flute which is the favored instrument of the Sufi order of the Mevlevi or Whirling Dervishes--grew up in Istanbul, where his father introduced him to Sufi spirituality and music. In 1975, at the age of 23, he moved to Paris to study musicology and architecture and, in turn, introduced his religious and musical culture to the West. He breathed a new life and energy into both, composing music for shows, films, and plays directed by such noted figures as Peter Brook and Maurice Béjart. He has worked in collaboration with British rock singer Peter Gabriel and French jazz violinist Didier Lockwood. Dominique Sewane is an anthropologist who holds a UNESCO chair at the University of Lomé and a doctorate from the Ecole pratique des hautes études en sciences sociales. Of her several works, the “Terre Humaine” collection has published Le Souffle du mort, Les Batammariba (Togo, Bénin). She also teaches at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), in Paris.
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"This collection embodies one of the major trends of ideas in the last fifty years. This fragmented literature tends towards the universal, and walking along have-nots and academicians, Dominicans and Chinese communists, derelicts and optimists, bank robbers and philosophers, one discovers the great journey of life and of reality, with its professions, streets, prisons, concentration camps, men living in the woods, in the great deserts or in the tundra. “Terre Humaine”, under the aegis of the French National Library, celebrated its 50th birthday. The authors have all strong personalities and by writing those books, they make confessions. They all enable the reader to feel this tension that allows them to reach what is most fundamental in a people. Their outlook is often based on a spirit of justice and rebellion against the hypocrisy of our condition that is corrupted by the power of money and the ambition of conquest. The publishing of each of these books is an event, a “signal” as observed by Pierre Nora. “Terre Humaine” offers a rare example of the presentation of different points of view, that is to say it places on the same level different approaches: from the erudite western philosopher, from the ethnologist - Lévi-Strauss, Bastide – to the illiterate from the Third World, often called the native – the Eskimo, the Bedouin, the Indian outcast, The Native American, the African, from the “upper class” – the Church, writers such as Zola or Ségalen –to the “lower class” - the miner, the fisherman, the horse of pride from Brittany, the Japanese hairdresser – from the worker to the have-not – the man sentenced to death, the homeless -, “Terre Humaine” wants to be a haven of refuge for the knowledge. The wish of its founder is that, pages after pages, this kindred thinking could impregnate the soil for comprehension and respect between men, without which they will not cease to run towards their doom.” Jean Malaurie, founder and director of the “Terre Humaine” series since 1954 Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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The exclusive reflections of Sebastião Salgado, one of the greatest photographers alive today, on his militant commitment to the preservation of the planet. A hymn to nature, beauty, and the beauty of nature. Sebastião Salgado’s photographs are famous worldwide. His black and white photos, his portraits of the anonymous, especially workers or refugees, are renowned for their incandescent use of light, their power, and the natural dignity their subjects express. In 2013, after eight years of reportage, he put together a show with “Genesis”, a series of exhibitions in Europe, Brazil, Canada and the United States featuring places on the planet that still remain untainted by industrialization. A hymn to nature. His landscapes, his portraits of animals, of men and women who live far from modern civilisation always evoke the same moving humanism. In this book, Sebastião Salgado talks for the first time about his militant commitment and his convictions as a photographer, not with images, but with words. Reliving the history of his photoreportages in over a hundred countries and his personal history, we follow him from Brazil to Paris where he created the Amazonas Images agency with his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado. He tells of their work on long-term reportages that covered years, becoming the subject of exhibitions, books, and publications in the international press, and of his love for photography. He takes us on a journey covering the world he crisscrosses over and over again, to contemplate, to understand, and to reveal his reflections. Born in Brazil in 1944, Sebastião Salgado lives in Paris. With a degree in economics, he worked at the Organisation international du café before becoming a photographer. Member of Sygma, Gamma and then Magnum photo agencies, he founded Amazonas Images in 1994 with his wife, Lélia Wanick Salgado. Together, they also created the Terra foundation, devoted to replanting the Brazilian forest.
Why buy this book? Worldwide fame of Sebastião Salgado, an exclusive narrative. Screen release of Wim Wenders’s documentary about him in October. Author’s site: www.amazonasimages.com Sebastião Salgado’s new exhibition “Genesis” around the world : - London, UK (April 2013 – September 2013), - Toronto, CANADA (May 2013 – September 2013), - Roma, ITALY (May 2013 – September 2013), - Rio de Janeiro, BRASIL (May 2013 - August 2013), - São Paulo, BRASIL(September 2013 - November 2013), - Lausanne, SWISS (September 2013 - January 2014), - Paris, FRANCE (September 2013 – January 2014), - Madrid, SPAIN (January 2014 - May 2014), - Venezia, ITALY(January 2014 – May 2014) - Porto Alegre, BRASIL (March 2014 - May 2014) - Belo Horizonte, BRASIL (May 2014 – August 2014)
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
RIGHTS SOLD TO: Contrasto (Italy) Ecus (Chinese SC - Taïwan) Companhia das Letras (Brazil) Sobitkil (Korea) MacLehose Press (UK)
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Between confidences and anecdotes, shadows and light, Dominique Besnehard, one of the most media-covered casting directors and influential agents of the 1980s, talks about his ongoing love story with the world of show business. It all began at Houlgate Casino, in Normandy, in the 1960s. This was the genesis of Dominique Besnehard’s compelling interest in cinema, and actresses. He is the one who has discovered beautiful unknowns such as Juliette Binoche* or Beatrice Dalle and defended the interests of many stars: Jeanne Moreau*, Isabelle Adjani*, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sophie Marceau*, Nathalie Baye and Christophe Lambert. (*here under portraits) A flamboyant personality, a man of heart, passion and loyalty, he has accepted to tell all, pulling no punches. From center stage and behind the scenes, here is the narrative of the atypical path of a man who, from the very beginning, could never get enough of his life with the strange and fascinating people who have captured the world of show business, and our imagination. Dominique Besnehard was one of the most publicized casting directors of the 1980s and one of the most influential agents of Artmedia, Europe’s most prestigious artistic agency. In 2006 he established Mon voisin Production, his own production company. Jean-Pierre Lavoignat is the former editor in chief of Première, co-founder and ex-director of Studio magazine. His previous books include Portraits choisis, with Catherine Deneuve (Éditions Des femmes, 1993), and other works about cinema.
Sophie Marceau
Juliette Binoche
Isabelle Adjani
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
Jeanne Moreau
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The first personal account of a young, 19-year-old Syrian, in the heart of the inferno that is the Assad regime. In her poignant description, Fayza plunges the reader into recent Syrian history, elbow to elbow with a people who have been trampled on and forced into the status of refugees. Not once does she give up the struggle. “I am 19 years old, and I feel as though I have lived a thousand lives. My current life will no doubt end in a few days. I will go to roam over the vast expanse of the Bekaa plane I can see beneath my window, Mohamed will find us a tent for shelter. I will join my family, who crowd together under a burning sun. I’ll get used to it. One always gets used to everything, as long as one is still alive. I am fighting to stay alive….” Fayza was born in Zabadani, a small town about sixty kilometers from Damascus. As a child, she studied «the principles of Baas» at school and witnessed the atrocities the regime of the Assads committed against her people. She took to the street with the first demonstrations, demanding justice for Deraa and freedom for all. She saw her father, a minor civil servant guilty of nothing, return from prison broken by torture, transformed into a domestic tyrant who threatened her with a crime of honor. She listened as her fiancé told her of nightmarish visions in the same prisons. She fled when her city was razed by the Syrian army. Like two million Syrians, she was compelled to take to the road when her world collapsed. Today, Fayza lives in Lebanon. One day, she says, she will be a doctor. That is, if she survives. Fayza, 19, fled Syria and lives today in Lebanon. In 2010, Djénane Kareh Tager’s Sous mon niqab, a previous first-hand account, was published. It sold 15.000 copies
Why buy this book? The first eye witness account of life under the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The civil war pitting Syrian rebels against Assad’s army, the source of all horrors. Current events, as the major Western powers prepare to bomb strategic sites in Syria. The success of the previous work based on a first-hand account granted Djénane Kareh Tager: Sous mon niqab, by Zeina (15.000 copies sold).
Foreign rights Contact: Ms. Florence Maletrez: florence.maletrez@plon-perrin.com Plon & Presses de la Renaissance, 12, avenue d’Italie – 75013 Paris, France. www.plon.fr
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