New book in English!
"This is a spellbinding story of passion and the politics of fear set in a city in transition. Cordelier brings the streets and waterways of Hanoi alive with accuracy of detail and telling imagery."
The English translation by Marie Ramsland of Hanoi Blues is now available. The novel was written while Jeanne Cordelier lived in Vietnam. The love story between a French woman reporter and a Vietnamese painter is told within the context of authentic images of daily life in communist Vietnam, exposing the lack of freedom of expression and the abuse of human rights.The book is now available at Abebooks.com , at Alibris.com ,
or from Amazon.com: Hanoi Blues
Here is an excerpt from the Introduction: “Insatiable curiosity and a sensitivity and compassion for the individual and the human condition in the social context are hallmarks of Cordelier’s writings and ensure the reader’s empathy with her fictionalised characters. This is a contemporary author dealing with current issues that touch the lives of people and impact on their destiny and the decisions they take, voluntarily or not.”
Bibliography
Jeanne Cordelier is a Woman Writer, the French author of La Dérobade, one of the biggest French best sellers of the last century, translated into 17 languages (into English by Harry Mathews). On this site you will find information on her works in three languages . You will also find a basic biography, her bibliography and information on her current works, including her monthly online words, published since March 1999. The literary success of her first book was remarkable. Her style has been compared to James Hadley Chase, Jean Genet, Cenrars, "Balzac punk", Villon, Chandler and others. Her novels are often labeled roman noir. She is the author of French Novels, Short Stories and Plays. La Dérobade, her novel about a prostitute's struggle for freedom, was adapted into a movie with same name (The Get-Away in English). The follow-up of La Dérobade, La Passagère, is a novel about her time in safe houses in the US, the real story behind the movie The French connection. Other themes in her novels are incest (two books, one a correspondence with a Canadian psychoanalyst, Julien Bigras, - Premier Bal -, the other a French girl's own story about being the victim of abuse - La Mort de Blanche-neige), social misery, always with a glimpse of hope, and human rights. In 2000, she published a love story based on her own experience from inside communist Vietnam, against the backdrop of the abuse of human rights in that country. This novel, Hanoi Blues, is now available in English and was recently republished in French. In 2001, she published her first collection of short stories, a second edition of which was published in 2005. In 2003, Jeanne Cordelier published a novel about a young man, L'Instruit, fighting his way back from social exclusion. Critics have emphasized the remarkable portraits of men by the female author (in for example Malparade, Sang et plume and L'Instruit). She is currently working on an autobiographic text about her life after the success of her first novel.
Books out of print - soon no more!
Since some since time, most books of Jeanne Cordelier have been out of print. The only book so far translated into English, The Life, can just be found among sellers of used and rare books. The French books, except for those published after 2003 are all out of print as well. They can however be bought as used books at exorbitant prices. After almost 25 years of self-chosen exile, Jeanne Cordelier has again settled down in France and reclaimed the rights of all her works published before. The year of 2006 marks the 30th anniversary of her literary debut and a special anniversary edition of La Dérobade was published in May 2007 (Editions Phébus,Paris), with a new avant-propos by Benoîte Groult and a previously unpublised post-face by the French author. Jeanne Cordelier writes about people whose voices are not heard, or if heard, despised. So she does not want her books to be unavailable for readers of younger generations and has decided to make her work available on demand. All of Jeanne Cordelier's books in French are now in the process of being republished. When this target has been reached, the coming year will reach for the republication of the translations of previous books. Of course, the next target will be to have more books translated into English to introduce Jeanne Cordelier to the English speaking world. The first book to be available in English is Hanoi Blues. It has an Introduction to English readers written by the translator Marie Ramsland, with Tatiana Tinlin.
Theater and Cinema
Jeanne Cordelier is also a playwright.
Her first French play, Camille des Anges, was originally staged in Sweden at the city theatre of Stockholm, directed by Johan Bergenstråhle in 1989. It has since been translated and performed in
Denmark, Finland and Albania. The translation work from French into Albanian was undertaken by Fatos Kongoli, a contemporary writer based in Tirana. The performance in Tirana was sponsored by USAID as part of its anti-trafficking programme. Jeanne Cordelier herself directed a performance in a women penitentiary at Rennes
in France, where the cast was filled by inmates. She has written three more plays, out of which one was performed on radio by the Swedish national radio.The movie based on La Dérobade was staged by Daniel Duval with Miou-Miou and Maria Schneider in the major female roles. It was a commercial success in France and is available on DVD.
