While some of the books you'll find in bookshops at the start of 2024 will turn your heart upside down, all of them are good for your mind. From Julien Sansonnens to David Foenkinos and the late Dick Marty, our team takes a brief look at some meaningful words.
Chelsea Rolle
It was with great sadness that we learned of Dick Marty's death on December 28. Not only did he leave the Swiss an example of political fervor and conviction, he also left behind two books. A certain idea of justice and Highly protected, published in 2018 and 2023 respectively, retrace, in the form of memoirs, the burning cases that have occupied the legal and political spheres in recent decades. Among the most memorable are his investigation into the secret prisons set up by the CIA (Center Intelligence Agency) and his report on organ trafficking in Kosovo, which cost him part of his freedom because he was placed under police protection. Beyond the obvious interest of these stories and anecdotes, which take us across Switzerland and the globe, these books draw their strength from Dick Marty's determination to work for a just world, governed by the rule of law. If a page has been turned with his passing, we can still turn the pages of this remarkable personality, reflect and be inspired.
Dick Marty
Highly protected
Editions Favre
February 2023
150 pages
Jonas Follonier
«Generations follow one another on the land of the elders, those who built everything, those who knew the taste of effort.» French-speaking author Julien Sansonnens is one of those (former) supporters of the Labour left who are still faithful to the value of work. But he is also a conservative, because he is attached to intergenerational transmission, the importance of history and identity. This political sensibility is also literary in his novels, giving a prominent role to place and memory. In Agnus Dei, this dimension is more present than ever. The writer stages a peasant drama based on a true story from the Broye region of Fribourg in the 1940s. Returning from mobilization at the border, the village blacksmith realizes that something is amiss in the village, and that it concerns his wife. What did she do while he was away? The plot is gripping, the style racy. A memorable read.
Julien Sansonnens
Agnus Dei
Editions de l'Aire
August 2023
114 pages
Sandrine Rovere
Who hasn't dreamed of changing their life? After Delicacy or Charlotte, French author David Foenikos explores this question in his latest novel, La Vie heureuse, published at the beginning of January by Gallimard.
Le Parisien continues its exploration of existential disarray, through the character of Eric, a gray cog in the French administration, who drags his spleen from Paris to Seoul in his country's foreign trade department. An imminent encounter with death prompts him to throw it all away and give himself a second chance.
«Never has an era been so marked by the desire to change one's life. At some point in our lives, we all want to be someone else,» writes David Foenkinos. And he's not wrong. Being able to start afresh is a dream as old as time itself. But the coronavirus pandemic has certainly amplified the phenomenon. In France, a study carried out just after the outbreak of the pandemic showed that one working person in five considered changing career during the crisis. «There's something very beautiful about the idea that encountering death makes you love life even more,» says the writer.
There's not an ounce of cynicism in The happy life. This is a resolutely optimistic book that believes in the ability of each individual to reinvent themselves. To take the measure of our mistakes and correct them. To make peace with oneself. It certainly sounds naive. The fact remains that, like a good hot chocolate, this book feel good comfort in the depths of winter, when the nights are long and the temperatures freeze.
David Foenkinos
The happy life
Gallimard
January 2024
208 pages
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