EDWARD GAUVIN

I did an official count, and sometime last year, I officially broke 100 in terms of the number of French graphic novels I have translated (am currently at 103). Some of these are still in production, so the actual published count is probably in the low 90s. This doesn’t count excerpts for periodicals like Words Without Borders.

What constitutes a “graphic novel”? I know, I know, this nomenclature is despite being widely suffered, still warmly contested. This count was based on source materials: i.e., if a French series was released in 3 volumes in France, but published as a single book in English, I counted it as 3 books. Conversely, if a single French book was split into 2 or more floppy issues in English, I counted it as 1 book.

The 100 looks more impressive in the original French, since they were mostly large hardcovers. Take the series The Secret History, for example, of which I’ve done 20 books to date: in French, each installment is a volume, hence a “graphic novel” unto itself, but due to packaging as a slightly thicker floppy with nicer cover stock, American readers are unlikely to consider it more than a single issue, hardcover trade collections of which might be deemed graphic novels (the relative completeness of story inside, or lack thereof, is another topic altogether).

New from SelfMadeHero:

Based on the real-life voyage of discovery of Admiral Arthur Phillip, who became the first Governor of New South Wales and founder of Sydney, Terra Australis is a dramatic historical account tracing the First Fleet’s epic seven-month journey, from its departure from London in 1787 to the early attempts at establishing a new settlement.

Fifteen hundred men and women were crammed aboard 11 ships sailing to the other side of the planet. Most were convicts, sentenced to transportation for crimes against the crown, and banished to exile. Having travelled over 24,000 km across three oceans, enduring mutiny, disease and perilous weather conditions, they arrived at a country that did not yet exist. For some it was a one-way trip to hell; for others, it proved an unexpected chance of a new life.

Written by LF Bollée, drawn by Philippe Nicloux, and published to coincide with Admiral Phillip’s bicentenary, this is a 500-page cinematic-scale epic that moves from the festering squalor of Newgate prison to the claustrophobic confines of the ships and the natural beauty of Botany Bay. The narrative and illustrations flow with expressionistic drama, highlighting the social climate of the late 18th century, and depicting the characters and landscapes in equal detail.

Bollée has maintained a life-long fascination for Australia and began working on the five-year project in 2007. His research drew on a wealth of reference books and personal accounts from the period, giving added authenticity to the project. Many of Phillip’s officers are featured, including diarist Lieutenant Ralph Clark, Lieutenant-General Watkin Tench, who published accounts of that first settlement, and Major Robert Ross, governor of Norfolk Island. True historical figures such as Bennelong, the first indigenous person to be taught English, and French botanist La Perouse are interwoven into the drama along with stories of real-life convicts including young thief John Hudson and Caribbean-born John Caesar.

ABOUT THE CREATORS

LF Bollée is a journalist who has written over 40 graphic novels. Fascinated by Australia, he began working on Terra Australis in December 2007. He is also the author of XIII Mystery, a spin off from the world-renowned XIII saga. He lives in Versailles, France.

Philippe Nicloux is from Nice, France. He has published three graphic novels – Rashomon, Otomi, and Tropique De L’agneau (published by Les Enfants Rouges).

Next month, UK indie comics dynamo SelfMadeHero will be releasing the first volume of Frederik Peeters’ ongoing far-future science fiction epic Aama in the US (it’s been available in the UK since the fall). The second volume of Aama won the prize for best series at Angoulême last year.

In case any readers out there want to read some other work by this creator in preparation for the upcoming release, here’s a glowing Publishers Weekly review of his last graphic novel, Pachyderme, which no less than Moebius himself called a masterpiece:

guided by her own future corpse, Madame Sorrel has a series of increasingly surreal encounters; corpses talk, spectral babies wander the halls, and hidden truths crawl towards the light. Caught in a dreamlike path that crisscrosses time itself, a confused and frightened Madame Sorrel struggles to understand her true situation; she faces a terrifying transformation but as the aged, dead Madame Sorrel assures herself, what is frightening and tragic from one perspective can be liberating from another. Each element in the story has purpose and meaning, one that invites close examination. Peeters is the winner of several European comics awards, and his work rises above mere period piece, offering the reader a story of painful growth and introspection. Masterfully translated by Edward Gauvin, Peeters’ tale of self-discovery is enthralling; in the author’s hands, Cold War paranoia and thoughtfully subverted realist art provides commentary on other kinds of secrets, other kinds of betrayals and the conflict between duty and need.

Always nice when reviewers take time to give a nod to the translator.

February is comics month at Words Without Borders. This is the eighth year in a row they’ve brought graphic wonders from around the world in translation to American readers. I’m proud to have been a part of this effort right from the beginning, and have been lucky enough to have a piece in almost every one of these issues. I translated three excerpts you’ll find in this February’s issue:

• in Jeanine, see Matthias Picard render a series of interviews with a Swiss prostitute that form a rather tender biography
• watch Nicolas Wild smoke tariak in his Tehran travel memoir, Silent Was Zarathustra, at once an exploration of an ancient, renascent religion, Zorastrianism, and a true crime story into a professor’s murder
• laugh when politics meets office comedy in Weapons of Mass Diplomacy by Christophe Blain and Abel Lanzac, a  roman à clef about speechwriting for former French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.

That makes 33 pieces (not counting one by Anouar Benmalek that due to a limited-duration rights contract was taken down), I’ve translated for Words Without Borders since 2005! I’m proud to be such a close and frequent contributor to the magazine that spearheaded the movement for global literature in the United States.

To commemorate the number 8—always a favorite of mine—most of my posts this month will be comics-related.

Gigantic, a magazine of short prose and art, is featuring two fictions by Jean Ferry, “My Aquarium” and “Rapa Nui.” Gigantic is one of those little magazines that can, or maybe it’s a little, big magazine? Or maybe it’s just plain huge. Certainly it’s tremendous. Check it out! If you like those Ferry pieces, be sure to take a peek at the Ferry collection now out from Wakefield Press.

H. V. Chao’s story “The Ark” placed in the Top 25 in Glimmer Train’s August 2013 Short Story Award for New Writers. Last time around, H.V. Chao placed in the Top 50 for Glimmer Train’s Best Start with “Jewel of the North,” so… getting closer! Congrats to all winners and placers!

Anne-Sylvie Homassel’s translation of H.V. Chao’s “Jewel of the North,” published in Le Visage Vert #19, got a nice comment from French spec fic critic and blogger Nebal, who called it “disconcerting… cryptic and quite precious, to say the least, but also rich in beautiful images and disturbing ideas.”

Editor, publisher, and writer D.F. Lewis reviews the entirety of Strange Tales IV (ed. Rosalie Parker) from Tartarus Press, story by story. Of H.V. Chao’s “The Recovery,” he says

“This is highly poetic, yet accessible, prose, as if TS Eliot and Lawrence Durrell collaborated one day from within ordered chaos upon this staggeringly rarefied story… It is a threnody of conversations and lovers’ trysts overheard by a Somerset Maugham but one wonders between who with whom, like listening at that famous wall with Pyramus and Thisbe, until we hear another disturbing story ending that I dare not hint at…”

Lewis, whose first novel was published at the age of 63 (2011), is the creator of Nemonymous, and is unique in recording his impressions for reviews in “gestalt real-time.”

Can it be that less than two days are left to give to

Well, what are you waiting for? Go save literature by giving to a new magazine!

Randy and Laura were the masterminds behind The Coffin Factory (the magazine for people who love books), which featured artists and writers representing over 30 countries and was sold in Barnes & Noble and bookstores nationwide. Now they’re setting out to publish Tweed’s: a boutique magazine of literature and art, designed for people who want a unique, deep-reading experience.

Tweed’s will be filled with captivating fiction, engaging interviews, and absorbing art, poetry, and informative essays. Everything you could ever want from a literary magazine will be woven together into a harmonious reading experience that has the focus of a journal and the beauty of a glossy.

Who’s already in Tweed’s? The first issue will bring you intimate conversations with Edwidge Danticat, John Freeman, and Sjón, with the full list of contributors to be revealed soon. Lots of goodies at their Indiegogo campaign for contributors!

Cover artwork by Stephen J Clark of The Singing Garden

This fourth volume of strange tales from Tartarus Press presents fifteen new stories in the fields of fantasy, horror, decadence and the supernatural.

Christopher Harman’s ‘By Leaf and Thorn’ mines the not-to-be underestimated magick of the English countryside, while John Howard’s uneasy timeslip piece ‘You Promised You Would Walk’ is set in modern Berlin. Rebecca Lloyd’s ‘Gone to the Deep’ explores the Celtic sea-myths of the Scottish isles, while Rhys Hughes’ ‘The Secret Passage’ follows the architectural obsession of a would-be good son.

Matt Leyshon has his ne’er-do-well anti-hero escape to a Greek island in ‘The Amber Komboloi’, while Angela Slatter’s ‘The Badger Bride’ follows the adventures of her shape-shifting, grown-up fairy-tale characters. H.V. Chao’s ‘The Recovery’ details a writer’s decadent working holiday in the South of France, while in ‘Drowning in Air’, Andrew Hook’s protagonist visits an anxiety filled, post-war Japan.

More stories of the highest quality—by John Gaskin, Jason A. Wyckoff, Richard Hill, Alan McIntosh, V.H. Leslie, Mark Francis and Andrew Apter—contribute to a fascinating, rewarding, and sometimes bracing trip through the highways and byways of contemporary strange fiction.

Containing:

• ‘By Leaf and Thorn’ by Christopher Harman
• ‘The Secret Passage’ by Rhys Hughes
• ‘Gone to the Deep’ by Rebecca Lloyd
• ‘You Promised You Would Walk’ by John Howard
• ‘Forth’ by A.J. McIntosh
• ‘Preservation’ by V.H. Leslie
• ‘The Man Who Wore His Father’s Clothes’ by Andrew Apter
• ‘The Badger Bride’ by Angela Slatter
• ‘The Amber Komboloi’ by Matt Leyshon
• ‘For a Last Spark of the Divine’ by Mark Francis
• ‘The Recovery’ by H.V. Chao
• ‘Drowning in Air’ by Andrew Hook
• ‘The Homunculus in the Curio’ by Jason A. Wyckoff
• ‘Time’ by Richard Hill
• ‘The Memento Mori’ by John Gaskin

Strange Tales IV is a sewn hardback book of 252 pages with silk ribbon marker, decorated boards, head and tailbands, and d/w. Limited to 350 copies.

Better late than never to the year-end best-of lists! H.V. Chao makes Bradley Winterton’s year-end roundup in The Taipei Times of notable literary titles: novels, nonfiction, and stories alike.

Finally, Thunkbook 1 surfaced this year, as the incarnation of the former Taiwan-based English-language literary magazine Pressed. In August, I found that the best item it contained was by H.V. Chao.

Winterton’s list looks like a lot of fascinating reading I will have to check out, including Edmund Trelawny Backhouse’s memoirs Decadence Mandchoue, about a homosexual English eccentric and talented linguist who gained access to the Forbidden City and became one of the Empress Dowager’s many lovers; Thai Stick by Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter; and The First Bohemians by art historian Vic Gatrell, on London’s 18th-century satiric cartoonists.