The best early training for a writer is an unhappy childhood,'Hemingway famously said. Julia Kerninon,one of France's most acclaimed young novelists,tells an altogether different story in a poetic account of her pursuit. Her vibrant ode to reading,and to writing as a space for discovery (as well as a'respectable occupation') entwines the French and Anglo-Saxon literary traditions as she journeys fluidly through her formative years. From her native Brittany to the city of Shakespeare and Company,to a seaside cafe on the Atlantic coast,to Budapest and back,the author conjures a feminine answer to A Moveable Feast.
MEDIA REVIEWS
Publisher: Les FugitivesISBN: 9781999331818Dimensions: 170 x 135 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'The greatest writers are also the greatest readers. Virginia Woolf,Roland Barthes,Jeanette Winterson - they all read,as Woolf put it,'to refresh and exercise (their) own creative powers.'They can't stop themselves from writing about reading. They have origin stories of how reading and writing became as necessary as breathing. Julia Kerninon's A Respectable Occupation joins the shelf of these biblioautobiographies; books on how writers crave books,how books beget books,how tricky it is to move from the position of the reader to that of the writer,and stand there feeling you've earned the right to call yourself,finally,a writer.'- Lauren Elkin
'Marvellously contagious'- Le Point
'Julia Kerninon has all the makings of an icon,'Nathalie Azoulai,Marianne
'She has already made her presence felt as one of France's most promising writers,'Jade Laurent,L'Express
'Julia Kerninon is a huge talent,'Jeanne de Menibus,ELLE (France)
'Instead of giving us a formative reading list,we are presented with her relationship with books: how to build a life around the daily consummation and production of words,and the visceral satisfaction that this provides. Life-time events are presented in terms of how they provide opportunities for writing (...) The work of writing is taken seriously - as work,as something which requires time and money,and for which sacred duty sacrifices must be made.'- Jennifer Sarha,#RivetingReviews
Kommentar