EVENTS

European Writer's Festival, British Library, 20th - 21st May 2023

Héloïse Press' Special Edition.

Introduced by Dr Dominique Carlini-Versini.

Héloïse Press is thrilled to introduce the English edition of The Memory of the Air. Caroline Lamarche, recipient of the 2019 prestigious Prix Goncourt de la nouvelle, is an exceptional writer.

The Memory of the Air is a sophisticated and introspective narrative about gaslighting. As the narrator shares with us her memories about a past relationship, we discover the small details hidden behind psychological abuse until landing into a major event in the narrator’s life.

"A nuanced, beguiling, haunting and deep exploration of the impact of male violence. A beautifully written portrait of a woman trying to reclaim selfhood through storytelling. I haven't read anything else quite like it. It will stay with me." Marisa Bate, journalist. 

"Like a spider, Manfore is a predator who has her trapped in his web, but the narrator is also like the spider, a beautiful woman who has spun a web and who sits at the center of her story."

                                                              Shara Kronmal, Necessary Fiction

Caroline Lamarche (Liège, 1955) is a novelist, poet, script writer and author of radio dramas. She spent her childhood in the north of Spain and her adolescence in the region of Paris. For many years, she suffered from insomnia. She refused to write. She kept a secret journal, married an adventurous man and moved to Africa. She taught French in English to Nigerian children. She returned to Belgium and worked as a bilingual administrator. She had two daughters in the early 80s. Ten years later, she started writing. Insomnia ended. In 2019, she received the prestigious Prix Goncourt de la nouvelle for her collection of stories "Nous sommes à la lisière" (Gallimard, 2019). She lives in the outskirts of Brussels.

Katherine Gregor worked as an English as a Foreign Language teacher, press agent, theatrical agent and a few other things before becoming a full-time literary translator from Italian and French, in 2014. She translates fiction, non-fiction and plays. She was on the Premio Strega Jury in 2020. She also created 'The Italianist', a column about untranslated Italian books, for the European Literary Network. Her translation credits include Stefania Auci's The Florios of Sicily (HarperVia), Marion Brunet's Summer of Reckoning (Bitter Lemon), Donato Carrisi's Into the Labyrinth (Little, Brown), and Sylvain Tesson's Berezina (Europa Editions). She is currently writing a non-fiction book.

About The Memory of the Air, Katherine says: 'Working with Caroline Lamarche's book is an honour and a joy. Every word, every comma counts. Her focused writing encourages a sense of intimacy with the text. Transforming the book into English feels like embroidering with silk thread the image traced by the author, because only silk of the finest quality and needlework of the highest precision will do'.