Editions Gallic – serie

A riveting collection of short stories by the French feminist Marie-Louise Gagneur.

Much acclaimed amongst her contemporaries and yet all but forgotten today, Marie-Louise Gagneur was a defining voice in French feminism. These stories, translated into English for the first time, critique the restrictions of late nineteenth-century society and explore the ways in which both men and women are hurt by rigid attitudes towards marriage.

In An Atonement, the Count de Montbarrey awakes one morning to find his wife dead, leaving him free to marry the woman he really loves. Could the Count have accidentally killed his wife? And how can he atone for his crime? Three Rival Sisters tells the story of the rivalry between Henriette, Renée and Gabrielle as they compete for the affections of one man. But marriage does not necessarily guarantee happiness, as the sisters are about to find out.

Steeped in wit, empathy and biting social criticism, and with echoes of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin, the stories show Gagneur to be worthy of renewed attention.

In Napoleon Bonaparte's novella, triumphant soldier Clisson turns his back on worldly success. He falls in love and marries Eugénie, and they live the simple life until Clisson is called back into battle.

The tragic story of Clisson and Eugénie reveals that Napoleon was also an accomplished writer of fiction, and offers a fascinating insight into how he viewed love, women, and military life.

Aged twenty-six, having already known success as a soldier, Napoleon was at a low ebb both professionally and personally when he began Clisson and Eugénie, and there are parallels between his life and their story.

Clisson and Eugénie is a fiction novel by one of history's great leaders, offering a fascinating insight into how the young Napoleon viewed love, women and military life.

'[A] melancholy tale' The Guardian

Their eyes met... and they soon knew that their hearts were made for each other. Triumphant on the field of battle, Clisson turns his back on worldly success. He falls in love and marries and Eugénie, but how long will their love survive? Written in an eloquently Romantic style true to its period, the tragic story of Clisson and Eugénie reveals one of history's great leaders to also be an accomplished writer of fiction.

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature comes a memoir of childhood and legacy.

‘Haunting’ The Guardian 

In 1948, a young J. M. G. Le Clézio left behind a still-devastated Europe with his mother and brother to join his father, a military doctor in Nigeria, from whom he had been separated by the war.

In his characteristically intimate, poetic voice, the Nobel Prize-winning author relates both the child’s dazzled discovery of freedom in the African savannah and the torment of recalling his fractured relationship with a rigid, authoritarian father.

Now available to UK readers in English for the first time, The African is a poignant memoir of a lost childhood and a tribute to a father whom Le Clézio never really knew. His legacy is the passionate anti-colonialism that the author has carried through his life.

How's the Pain? is an off-kilter, blackly comic novel about an unlikely duo of a soon-to-be-retired assassin and a deadbeat young man, from the 'slyly funny' [Sunday Times] Pascal Garnier.

'Deliciously dark ... painfully funny' New York Times 

Death is Simon's business. And now the ageing vermin exterminator is preparing to die. But he still has one last job down on the coast, and he needs a driver.

Bernard is twenty-one. He can drive and he’s never seen the sea. He can’t pass up the chance to chauffeur for Simon, whatever his mother may say. As the unlikely pair set off on their journey, Bernard soon finds that Simon’s definition of vermin is broader than he’d expected ... 

Veering from the hilarious to the horrific, this offbeat story from master stylist Pascal Garnier is at heart an affecting study of human frailty.

An extraordinary tale of a stifled childhood and an unrelenting love of life from the protégée of Simone de Beauvoir.

'Indisputably a brilliant writer' Evening Standard 

In a small French town, a young girl grows up under the hard blue gaze of a mother who will not hold her hand. Her only comfort lies in the warmth of her ill grandmother. 

Yet the world around her is humming with curiosity. From the obsessive Madame Barbaroux and her endless spring cleaning, to the homeless Monsieur Dezaille and his beloved collection of saucepans, Leduc exposes the eccentricities of provincial life with unflinching candour and striking beauty.