Ready for some reading? The 2021 Booker Prize shortlist has been published and, despite eliminating Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro’s longlisted Klara and the Sun, contains plenty of intriguing titles. Britain’s premier literary prize opened up in 2013 to books written in English by authors of any nationality, which sparked worries of it being dominated by … Continue reading “Booker Prize 2021 Shortlist”
A retrospective exhibition of Georgia O’Keeffe’s long career at the Pompidou Centre is a great opportunity to work with pupils on her depiction of the U.S.’s wide open spaces. O’Keeffe was born in Wisconsin in 1887 and lived to the age of 98. Her career spanned many of the movements of modern art, at first … Continue reading “America Seen by Georgia O’Keeffe”
The British have their pet bugs about the French language and culture, and the French feel much the same about les Rosbifs. Paul Taylor enjoys laughing at both, and he’ll have audiences rolling in the aisles as he tours France with his show “So British ou presque.” Taylor has binocular vision when it comes to … Continue reading “Bilingual Comedy All Around France”
The 2021 UK Women’s Prize for Fiction has been won by Susanna Clarke for Piranesi, only her second novel, published 16 years after her immensely popular Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Like its predecessor, Piranesi is an experimental novel in the realm of fantasy. Piranesi lives alone in an immense labyrinthine house surrounded by sea. … Continue reading “2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction Winner”
The Institut-Franco-Américain in Rennes is marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks with an exhibition and a talk. On 21 September, Florian Treguer from University Rennes 2 will look back on the 9/11 attacks through the prism of Don DeLillo’s 2007 novel Falling Man. And an exhibition, 20 Ans Après Never Forget, by … Continue reading “9/11 Commemorated in Rennes”
Prizewinning Irish novelist Colum McCann will discuss freedom and resistance in his work at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris on 4 September, with musical accompaniment from fiddler Colm Mac Con Iomaire, who shares his commitment to dialogue and peace. McCann’s most recent novel Apeirogon has received recognition from around the world including in France le prix … Continue reading “Colum McCann: Literature and Music”
Just ahead of the COP26 summit in Glasgow at the end of October, a cinema release for the documentary I am Greta. The young environmental activist who started School Strike for the Climate in 2018 is still only 18, but has had a profound effect on environmentalists young and old. The documentary was made almost … Continue reading “She is Greta”
Fingers crossed, the two major Anglophone film festivals in France are set to go ahead. The Deauville American Film Festival on 3-12 September and the Dinard British Film Festival from 29 September to 3 October. The chances are that there will be fewer Hollywood stars on the boardwalks than usual at Deauville but there will … Continue reading “Deauville and Dinard Film Festivals”
African-American author Colson Whitehead and film director Barry Jenkins both made the same mistake when they were children and first heard about the Underground Railroad. The historical Underground Railroad was a network of people who helped slaves escape from the American South to freedom in the northern states or Canada. Both Whitehead and Jenkins pictured … Continue reading “Bringing the Underground Railroad to the Screen”
Marseilles is an appropriate setting for an exhibition on surrealism in American Art: it was from its port that many members of the Surrealist movement fled Nazi occupied France for New York. Find out more at the centre de la Vieille Charité until 26 September. The exhibition examines the cross-fertilisation between European and American Surrealists … Continue reading “Surrealism in American Art”
