America. Группа авторов
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AMERICA
AMERICA
AN ANTHOLOGY OF FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES
Edited by
François Busnel
Black Cat
New York
Introduction copyright © 2020 by François Busnel
All other pieces were originally published in French in the magazine America.
English translations copyright © 2020 by David and Nicole Ball; John Cullen; Kate Deimling; Penny Hueston; Jessica Moore; Emma Ramadan; Rachael Small; Sandra Smith; Helen Stevenson; and Sam Taylor.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].
Excerpt from Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice by Colum McCann, copyright © 2017 by Colum McCann. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Same excerpt, copyright © 2017 by Colum McCann, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited. Same excerpt, copyright © 2017 by Colum McCann, published in Canada by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
This work received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States through their publishing assistance program.
first edition
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in Canada
This book was designed by Norman E. Tuttle of Alpha Design & Composition
This book is set in 11-pt. ITC New Baskerville by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH
First Grove Atlantic paperback edition: September 2020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.
ISBN 978-0-8021-4934-3
eISBN 978-0-8021-4935-0
Black Cat
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
TABLE OF CONTENTS
François Busnel
Alain Mabanckou
Philippe Besson
Richard Powers
Marie Darrieussecq
Joël Dicker
Hitchhiking along the Border
Sylvain Prudhomme
Laura Kasischke
Abdourahman Waberi
Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
A Hat in Manhattan
François Busnel
Miss Gulliver in America
Leïla Slimani
The Home(less) of the Free and the Brave
Lee Stringer
Philippe Coste
Yann Perreau
We Must Fight for Our Memory
An Interview with Louise Erdrich
Philippe Claudel
Alice Zeniter
A Call to Young Writers on the Eve of the Trump Presidency
Colum McCann
By
François Busnel
Translated by
Kate Deimling
How many times have you heard someone say, “In the Trump era, truth is stranger than fiction”? This is why some friends and I founded a magazine in which specialists in fiction—novelists—can describe the reality of America.
America came about after Donald Trump was elected. The idea was to tell the story of the world’s number one superpower on a quarterly basis, for the length of a presidential term. Trump’s victory didn’t just stun many Americans. It shook the whole world. As a Frenchman, I feel I belong to what is sometimes called, without irony or submissiveness, the fifty-first state. In other words, the rest of the world. Whether we like it or not, we are all deeply affected by what happens in the United States. If we accept the prevailing cynicism and see Donald Trump simply as a clown, we’re just fooling ourselves. The current resident of the White House is much more astute than people think. He shrewdly proves the Mark Twain maxim “All you need in this life is