fiction - Anastasia Lester Literary Agency - Free

CONTEMPORARY UP-MARKET COMMERCIAL TRENDSchaste as it seems. Believing he is an emissary of the Church, the women confess their sexual urges to Ramon,and Rodolphe winds up as the sex slave of a bourgeois young woman who forces him to teach her sodomy. Tokeep up the pretense of their fraud, the two men have to come up with ever-more absurd discourses, and theywind up trapped by a society approaching a state of hysteria. In raw yet theatrical language, like a cross betweenvaudeville and the absurd, grotesque and ever-more implausible situations pile up. Our two heroes get just onething – aside from a little money – from their scam: they learn that all the world’s a stage and all you need to doto make it yours is to know how to play your role.Born in 1963, Ludovic Roubaudi has been a jack-of-all-trades: journalist, fire-fighter, ghostwriter… andcurrently project manager in the world of business. LE POURBOIRE DU CHRIST is his 4 th novel published byLe Dilettante, after LES BALTRINGUES, LE 18 and LES CHIENS ÉCRASÉS.Boukhobza, Chochana: MÉTAL(Denoël, August 2013, 416 pages)Ø The tale of an unlikely yet somehow inevitable friendship between a woman artist and an old man whounderstand each other wordlessly.Ø The author has a heightened instinct for narration, and she keeps the story moving along at a perfectpace. Every detail of the skillfully created atmosphere is meaningful.Ø A timely and relevant novel concerning artistic creation and the players in the system that surrounds it.Ø An invitation to consider doing the work needed to examine fascist regimes from the angle of sculpture.Tania Breitman spends her days twisting, soldering and overcoming huge blocks of scrap iron strewnaround an abandoned workshop. She has been a sculptor ever since she learned the trade from gypsies, when herfamily fled Ceausescu’s Rumania for France. Thanks to Kruger, her teacher and mentor, she learned fast. Shewas even the darling of the Parisian art scene for a while, and the star artist at the famous Leroy Gallery. But herstubborn determination to abandon stonework in favor of metal put everyone off, except Mr. Freddy. This trueand powerful friendship is portrayed with great sensitivity, making it into what is surely the artist’s greatestwork.Chochana Boukhobza was born in Tunisia in 1959. She lived in Paris and in Israel. She is the author ofseveral novels, including her debut novel UN ÉTÉ À JÉRUSALEM, which received the Prix Méditerranée in1986, and LE CRI, which was short-listed for the Fémina Prize in 1987. After LE TROISIÈME JOUR (rightssold: World English / McLehose and Italy / Einaudi) and FUREUR, MÉTAL is the 5 th novel by Boukhobza thatasserts her undeniable talent as a storyteller.Condou, Isabelle: UN PAYS QUI N’AVAIT PAS DE PORT(Plon, August 2013, 352 pages)Ø A novel that explores an infamous phenomenon: the inhumane treatment that is often meted out toclandestine passengers.Ø Based on in-depth groundwork: in order to write the novel, the author spent several months on a cargoship.Ø The paying passengers’ decent instincts are intertwined with shameful motives. Torn between compassionand disgust, human kindness and indifference, Josephine, Bohdan and Marek have to fight first againstthemselves and finally, against the very despair of the clandestine youth.A clandestine passenger on a cargo ship threatens to interfere with the voyage of three Europeans. Whatwill prevail: their desire to help him or their inclination to ignore any humane instinct and just get on with theirtrip?Aboard a freighter travelling between Europe and the Pacific, the discovery of a clandestine passengercreates a problem for three travelers who have paid their way. What should they do? Turn him in? Help him toattain his dream? Or just get rid of him? Their consciences stirred, relationships are formed, ones that involveeach one’s past, but whatever their respective and fluctuating positions regarding this man who has no right toexpect anything of them, their own personal concerns take precedence over those of the man whose life is atstake. Leaning over the ocean mirror, Bohdan, Marek, and Josephine – all three of them loners, individuals atonce complex and monstrously banal – heave the man into the sea, drowning their desires and their fears alongwith him.44Contact: Mrs Anastasia Lester ; Email:anastassia.lester@gmail.com