Banned Book Week celebrates the "Freedom to Read" from Sept 21 to Sept 27.

Bookish people and defenders of freedom of expression all over the globe support it. It has its own hashtag on Twitter #bannedbookweek or #bannedbooksweek.

How ironic, then, to be reading at the same time calls in the French press to boycott Valérie Trierweiler's memoir, Merci pour le Moment.

Bookstores that claim they will refuse to stock it. Critics who sniff at a book that we are supposed to believe is worse for our intellectual and moral development than the mega bestseller sold everywhere in France Cinquante Nuances de Grey. Politicos who, well, just don't want to know what it might say.

Ever since the vengeful Procopius, official historian to the great Byzantine emperor Justinian wrote his vicious, hilarious and probably pretty accurate Secret History have we relied on angry insiders for a glimpse of what really goes on inside the corridors of power.

But the irony of trying to squelch a book ON BANNED BOOK WEEK.

Kudos!

(well, ok, most of the calls to boycott the book were technically before Banned Book Week actually started... but still!)

This month, news from the Geneva Writers Conference, Upstairs at Duroc, The Young Authors Fiction Festival, Fred Leebron, Cynthia Haven, Tracie Morris, Judy Pou, Lance Tait, Fernanda Eberstadt, Monique Wells, Donald Morrison, Robert Camuto, Noella Marcellino, Denyse Beaulieu, Philip Caputo, Pamela Druckerman, John Morris, Fred Weissler, Elyse Michaels-Berger, Sallie Chaballier, JANE COPE, KIT FRYATT, PANSY MAURER-ALVAREZ, JOE ROSS, John Baxter  and more..

See details on Paris Writers News

Tsunami warnings, written in stones centuries old in Japan 

While nuclear engineers, scientists and technical risk assessment experts debate where to install back-up generators, spent fuel rods, and remote controls, Fukushima offers five major lessons for France.

1) Do not risk something you cannot afford to lose.

Like your home. Your agriculture. Your patrimony.

France, like Japan, is small.

Unlike the Soviet Union after Chernobyl, Japan cannot simply walk away from Fukushima, dumping poisoned lands on someone else. 

(What would an accident mean for France--a land famous for its locally produced wine, cheeses, poultry?)

LESSON NUMBER ONE: Nuclear reactors and waste storage facilities should not be built in areas that it is unthinkable to lose.  Ever. 

2) Conflict of interest is lethal for safety.

The collusion of interests between the nuclear industry, Japanese politicians determined to promote nuclear, and financial firms with huge bets on the industry ensured that repeated, flagrant safety violations were ignored. Regulatory agencies were weak and compromised, scientists and researchers afraid to lose their jobs and managers more interested in profits than safety.

This situation is not unique to Japan. In France, too, governments are committed to nuclear, industry ties are pronounced and independent experts cowed. EDF, AREVA and the French government collaborate closely.

(Witness the French government's public support of the nuclear industry before the Fukushima crisis was even resolved.)

LESSON NUMBER TWO : Only with strong, completely independent regulators can safety be ensured. 

3) Experts can and will make mistakes.

• Assuming electricity supplies will never be cut off for more than 12 hours.
• Failing to take tsunamis into account in a region known for tsunamis. 
• Installing nuclear reactors in major earthquake zones.
• Depending on the massive, uninterrupted flow of water in areas which periodically suffer devastating droughts.
• Promoting nuclear power in violent countries with profoundly fragile regimes.
• Stocking radioactive materials "temporarily" in dangerously exposed positions.
• Failing to plan for simultaneous problems at more than one reactor and a natural disaster that disrupts roads, electricity and other infrastructure surrounding a plant 

Nuclear experts are human and make mistakes, just like the rest of us. Also, as Fukushima shows, situations can rapidly spin out of control where the expert know longer knows what is happening or how to respond.

People like Claude Allègre are dead wrong when they argue that nuclear power is too complicated for a democratic debate. On the contrary, it is ONLY democratic debate, with full disclosure, that will enable us to make the right choices.

LESSON NUMBER THREE : It is a mistake to put blind trust in experts.

4) Black Swans happen

Refusing to seriously plan for human error, terrorist attack, computer failures, hacking, fire, flood, or any of the many things which can and do go wrong--because the consequences would be to terrible to contemplate--is stupid and irresponsible. Black Swans happen. 

Extreme events are not just possible, they are inevitable. (Think: Kobe, tsunami in Thailand, Katrina, Volcano...)

Do not let people with a financial, political or emotional stake in the nuclear industry tell you that it is childish to envisage an unlikely event.

 LESSON NUMBER FOUR: See lesson number 1.

5) The costs of nuclear energy are much higher than stated.

For years, government and industry have conspired to conceal the true costs of electricity produced by nuclear energy.

Decommissioning costs, spent fuel storage costs, the costs of the inevitable accidents--none of these costs are included in current calculations, and they should be.

Only when the full costs are calculated and included can a reasonable cost comparison be made with alternative energies.

LESSON NUMBER FIVE: Nuclear's costs, still unknown, are rising.

 ***

from Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

for full blog entry click here

Authors on Authors

This week, Laurel Zuckerman talks with professional chef, author and Paris food blogger, David Lebovitz.

David Lebovitz worked for 13 years at Alice Water's legendary Chez Panisse restaurant and was named one of the Top Five Pastry Chefs in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Chronicle. His writing has been featured inBon Appétit, Chocolatier, Cooking Light, Food+Wine, Cook’s Illustrated, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times, People, Saveur, Sunset, and USA Today. 

In addition to his excellent blog, David's books include Ready for Dessert, the Perfect Scoop, The Great Book of Chocolate, Room for Desert,  and The Sweet Life in Paris which was a finalist in the Best Literary Writing category, in the 2010 Cuisinart/International Association of Culinary Professionals awards.

***

Laurel Zuckerman: For you, which came first, writing or cooking?

David Lebovitz: Cooking. I started working in restaurants when I was sixteen years old. Even though I learned to write a little earlier than that, I was a professional cook before I started writing, like I do now.

LZ: Do they compete for your attention? If so, who wins?

DL: Nowadays it’s kind of a wrestling match between the two, with me in the middle. I prefer to be in the kitchen, but writing takes a lot of concentration and I need to buckle down to do it, so my time it divided. The best part about writing is there’s no dishes to wash. But when I’m cooking, at the end of the day, dinner’s ready. So I’m not sure which wins, but anything that involves less dishes may have the edge.

 LZ: What brought you to Paris, and why do you stay? 

DL: It’s funny because that’s my number-one asked question by visitors. I used to just stand in the middle of the street, throw my arms up, and say “Look around you!” but I got too many looks from people passing by, wondering what the crazy American with the croissant crumbs on his jacket was doing standing in the middle of the street, twirling around shouting, with his arms in the air.

I wrote a bit about some of my reasons for moving to Paris in The Sweet Life in Paris, but they’re still vague and undefined. Perhaps that’s another book?

So why do I stay: I like the quality of life in Paris. In spite of some of the difficulties of life in France, it’s a pretty nice place and the city of Paris actually feels like a very large, urban village. I like knowing people in my neighborhood - the baker, the people at my market, the people standing over the griddles  at my crêperie - I like that small-town interaction and folks tend to think of cities as big, impersonal places. But even New Yorkers know people in their neighborhoods. I lived in San Francisco for nearly twenty years but spent so much time in the car that I just missed walking around, too. I like living in a place where I don’t have to drive, especially because the wine flows so plentifully. Which, come to think of it, is another reason I stay.

LZ: Where did you learn to write?

DL: I never really learned to write, at least professionally. I just write like I talk, which some say is a skill. But I think writing recipes is good practice for most writing other kinds because it teaches you to be descriptive without being overly wordy. And writing is all about editing and recipe-writing is the ultimate editing exercise because no one wants a 5 page recipe for brownies. But you do need to include certain key information without scaring people from the recipes.

LZ: Which writers have influenced you the most?

DL: To be honest, I wish I was more influenced by other writers. Favorite food writers like Roy Andries De Groot, Richard Olney and Jane Grigson are amazing, and whenever I read anything by contemporaries like Alec Lobrano and John Thorne, I use them as models for how wonderful someone can write about food. But I’m not any one of them and I don’t think people should try to emulate other writers at all. Just be yourself.

 LZ: How did you discover and develop your own voice?

 DL: Blogging is a great way to develop as a writer. The trap is to avoid being too conversational. For example, I say “like” as every third word...but readers would probably tire of that. When I write a book, it’s more permanent and I know that people are paying for the book, so I spend more time laboring over the words. Also I always have an editor who helps out and gives me the red pencil if I’ve gone too far off the deep end.

 LZ: How do you keep in shape for writing ? Are there any special foods that sharpen or enhance your ability to write ? (Or on the contrary, things you actively avoid when facing a deadline ?)

 DL: Depending on how you look at it, my apartment is well-fortified with lots of chocolates, caramels, and candies, squirreled away all over the place. (For“research.”) And unfortunately, I snack a little too much, which is also my preferred method of procrastination. I do yoga three times a week and walk or ride a bike as much as possible because writing can get a little lonely; it’s just you and the computer.

And if I find myself staring at a screen for more then eleven hours straight, I start to get a little batty and vow to get outside later that week.

LZ: Do you think a chef tends to look at the world in a slightly different way?

 DL: It’s funny to see the whole chef thing glamorized, because for the most part, we’re people in the back of the kitchen toiling away and some of the people I’ve worked with were best kept far, far away from the public. A lot of us are really marginal and obsessive and it’s weird to see the whole thing put in front of the public in such a polished way.

Chefs  tend to be analytical and to-the-point. There’s no time to dawdle or worry about hurting someone’s feelings; if you’re discussing a dish, you say how you feel, you don’t take offense, and you move on if you make a mistake since if you get hung up on things, you’re going to get behind when the next rush comes in. But baking and being a pastry chef, you do a lot of thinking because you’re measuring and so forth, rather than heating up pastas and grilling meat, which are more physical skills.

for the complete interview, click here

***

David Lebovitz's books are widely available in bookstores, and on the web. To visit his blog see: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/

Laurel Zuckerman is the author of Sorbonne Confidential and the Editor of Paris Writers News.

For more interviews with authors, see Paris Writer News Interviews or follow us on twitter at @pariswriters

1) Great writer and truly vicious anti-Semite Céline was dropped from French national celebrations after Serge Klarsfeld protested according the Nazi collaborator state honors.

2) Céline scholar Henri Godard cried "censure!" at Frédéric Mitterand's decision despite the fact that Céline's works are widely available in France and figure among the most translated works of French literature in the world.  (See debate in Le Monde)

3) PPDA accused of plagarism (again) this time on Hemingway bio: read his defense in Le Monde 

 4) Michel Levi and Michel Houellebecq fight over the title "La Carte et le territoire" rue89

5) Servier Labs manages to force publisher to recall books on Mediator scandal because of subtitle: "How Many Deaths?" before widening public outcry over confirmed deaths obliges courts to overrule previous ruling.  Bravo to Doctor Irène Frachon and the publisher who defended her, Charles Kermarec!

6) Aurélie Boullet, better known under her nom de plume Zoe Shepard, has been reinstated in her civil servant post after being temporarily suspended for the publication of her satire of official sloth in Absolument Débordée, soon to be a film.

For news about English language writers in France, see PARIS WRITERS NEWS !

http://www.laurelzuckerman.com/paris-writer-news/

Authors interview authors

Within days of Time magazine's publication of Don Morrison's article on the decline of France as an international cultural power, French media "lit up like the Eiffel Tower in full sparkle". Major French figures like Didier Jacob, Maurice Druon, Teresa Cremisi, Olivier Poivre d'Arvor, and François Busnel, weighed in. The blogosphere went wild. Even foreigners got involved. US Ambassador Craig Stapleton wrote a letter--defending France. Feeling that 3000 words were insufficient to explore such a complex subject, Morrison has now written an expanded book: The Death of French Culture, with a response by Antoine Compagnon, Professor of Literature at the Collège de France. Questions by Laurel Zuckerman, of Paris Writers News.

LZ: Why do you think your original article caused such a strong reaction in France?

DM : More than almost any other country, France takes culture seriously. For centuries, it has been an element of French diplomacy, national identity and the "gloire" that sets France apart from lesser nations. Only France proclaimed a "civilizing mission" to imbue colonial subjects with, among other gifts, France's cultural heritage. Even today culture remains one of France's unique selling propositions. As, a French diplomat once proclaimed, "Germany may have Siemens, but we have Voltaire." So anyone who makes critical remarks about French culture, no matter how accurate or well-meaning, should be prepared for a strong reaction.

LZ: How did you get interested in the question of French culture?

DM :I went to a small high school in a small mid-American town, where a small but very tough nun pounded a few words of French into my skull -- along with a lifelong fascination with the culture and history of this seemingly exotic country. I thought I'd never visit the place. But when I did, many years later, I was astonished to find that people pretty much understood the strange sounds I was able to summon from the mists of memory. One thing led to another, and I'm still here, still fascinated.

LZ: You point out how language, education, cultural bureaucracy contribute to the death of French culture. Let’s talk about language first.

Use of French is declining very quickly. Only 33 high Chinese high schools out of 15,000 offer French classes. In England French is no longer required and major US universities are dropping their French departments. Is this inevitable? What is to be done?

DM :This trend troubles me greatly, considering how hard I've tried -- and largely failed -- to master French. I used to applaud France's strenuous efforts to promote French as an international language, but I'm beginning to think it's not worth the trouble. A French president walking out of an international forum because one of his countrymen addresses the audience in English? French diplomats slowing down the work of multilateral organizations with demands that French be an official language? Quotas limiting other languages heard on French radio and TV? Millions of euros a year spent on La Francophonie and similar extension efforts? I wonder if those resources could be put to better use. They aren't going to halt the rise of English. That's a fact of globalization. It affects German, Italian, Gujarati and Cantonese just as it does French, but for some reason other countries don't twist themselves into pretzels trying to resist it. I wonder if France's resources would be better spent ensuring that its culture is more robust and exportable, rather than produced in French.

LZ: Should the French communicate in English in order to be heard? What options do they have?

DM : For good or ill, English is increasingly the language that other countries use to speak to each other. They still retain their national languages, as France surely will. Actually, despite its protestations, France is dealing with that reality fairly well. English is widely taught in schools from an early age. Many French multinational companies use English as a working language. French rock and pop musicians perform in English. French is never going to disappear. But even if it is less widely spoken than it was a decade or two ago, France is no less prosperous or secure as a result. On the contrary.

LZ: French education policies have devastated the study of French literature in France : destruction of the L bac option, ruin of literature and social sciences in French universities (“Three times more space for a Bresse chicken than a French university student.”) Why this neglect? Will the 5 billion euro "Plan Campus" improve things? Autonomy?

DM : The sad state of French universities has been a topic of national debate for years, and I'm pleased that the problem is being addressed. It's obvious that a country's future is linked to the quality of its education, and universities have long been a weak link in the French system. In particular, France could improve the vigor of its culture by turning its universities into centers of cultural excellence -- where literature and the arts are not just studied intensively as academic subjects but also as performing professions, with appropriate performing facilities. That would help develop not only the next generation of writers and artists, but also the next generation of cultural audiences. Other countries do this. France can too.

LZ: “Excessive cultural subsidies suffocate creativity” how? Who decides which artists get support in France?

DM : On a per-capita basis, France subsidizes culture more heavily than just about any other country. It's a well-meaning attempt, but it has the perverse effect of promoting safe, predictable works by cultural producers seeking subsidies. It doesn't help that the subsidies are doled out by cultural bureaucrats. True, they tend to be functionaries of impeccable taste and exacting standards, but they are bureaucrats nonetheless -- not audiences. This intensive subsidization also encourages the production of culture that appeals to a national audience, as distinct from an international one. Thus, French culture has a tendency to become "franco-francais" rather than internationally appealing. French artists and writers are encouraged to address a French audience, and not to produce works that succeed outside France. Similarly, subsidies and other protectionist measures tend to insulate France from foreign cultural influences, to the detriment of its culture. History has shown that exposure to and competition with foreign influences keeps a nation's culture vital. Of course, everything I've just said is a generality. In practice, French culture is alive and well, and some of it exports well. But that's despite subsidies, not thanks to them.

LZ: What is the role of favoritism and incompetence in the failure of official French cultural organizations to spread French culture?

DM :These practices are surprisingly rare among French cultural officials, who in my experience are mostly fair and scrupulous in their duties. But the bureaucratic structure in which they operate -- the system that gives them vast power over who gets rewarded, hired, promoted and subsidized -- is inherently open to abuse. It's an accident waiting to happen.

LZ: Is a Ministry of Culture harmful? Or is it the quality recent ministers (Jacques (‘loi’) Toubon, Chrisine Albanel (who so infuriated the brilliant Bartabas that he wrecked her office); Frédéric Mitterand (currently in hiding)? Could a great Culture Minister turn things around? How?

DM : Nearly every country has a culture ministry, but few have one as big and powerful as France's -- one that sucks all the air out of the cultural space in France, that makes all the big decisions about culture. The effect is that the French tend to view culture as a public utility, one they have no control over and feel little responsibility for. Actually, I think France has had some effective and truly visionary culture ministers, from Andre Malraux right down to Frederic Mitterrand -- who, by the way, is not in hiding. He's in the papers nearly every day, and I'm going to see him at a conference in a few weeks. But does any country need an all-powerful minister to determine the course of the nation's culture? Or would culture be better served by making its beneficiaries, i.e. you and me, more responsible for its progress, and more empowered to help decide its future?

LZ: Why do French writers make such a small splash outside France? Is this really a quality problem or one of industrial organization?

DM : You could argue that it's a quality problem, that French writers since the dawn of the nouveau roman have favored spare, elegant, bloodless fiction beloved of critics but shunned by readers, especially those abroad. But it's also a problem of competition: too many writers in other countries produce novels bursting with plot, character and color, which do indeed travel well. I'm not talking just about commercial novels, but also "literary" fiction. You see these writers, mostly foreigners, all over the best-seller lists, even in France. There's also a problem of publishing economics. Translations cost money, and foreign publishers are facing hard times in many countries. It's easier for them to feast on the abundance of local writers. But mostly I think it's the fact that too many French novelists are not focusing on the real state of contemporary France, its fascinating national debates and its very serious problems. In my admittedly biased view, contemporary French fiction can be thoughtful, introspective and formally inventive -- but not especially connected to contemporary France.

LZ: You've said that French writers tend not to engage with current events. What is the role of taboos in stifling French writers? (A few years ago, telling the truth about Algeria was still a punishable offense; French students study the Vietnam War more than the colonial war in French Indochina; and the American slave trade more the history of slavery in French colonies).

DM : I'm not sure taboo is the right word. It's more a matter of timing and priorities. It took American novelists two decades to address the Vietnam war in a serious and concerted way. Somehow, the subject was considered too sensitive, too unresolved or otherwise not ripe enough for thoughtful engagement. France's behavior during World War II is finally getting its due, and I'm sure other sensitive historical subjects will follow. We are, for instance, beginning to see some good writing about the immigrant experience in France. As the country's dispossessed minorities find their voice, we'll see more good, topical fiction.

LZ: How to write the Great French Novel ? Should an outsider write it? An expat, for example?

DM : I don't think you'd have to be an outsider to capture the essence of France, Frenchness and all the other things that might constitute a great national novel. After all, being a writer means being able, or at least willing, to look at the world through different eyes, to apply imagination to reality. That said, it's interesting that so much great American and British fiction has come from first- and second-generation immigrants, including the great postwar Jewish-American writers, and the impressive younger writers with roots in Britain's former colonies. I expect to see a similar wave of excellence coming from the margins of French society.

LZ: Many of the great internationally known icons of French culture were (or are) Jewish. (Proust, Perec, Marcel Marceau, Goscinny, Levy Strauss, Derrida, Aron, Bergson, Durkheim, Cyrulnik, Gainsbourg, Barbara, JJGoldman, Berger, Truffaut, Simone Signoret, Reza, Finklekraut, Glucksman, BHL) Has French culture been permanently impoverished by its treatment of Jews in WWII?

DM : The entire world has been impoverished by the Jewish tragedy of World War II. France is not alone. And coming to terms with the war is a task for France, not for me. But I do live in France at a time when, for rather shabby political reasons, other French minorities are being marginalized, told what not to wear and where not to live and, in one shocking case, singled out for deportation. I wonder if, someday soon, we might start asking ourselves how many potential French cultural geniuses were lost or thwarted by such policies.

LZ: Let’s talk money. For a foreigner the treatment of billionaire François Pinault, who wanted to turn Ile Séguin into a great art museum but got so frustrated by French politicians and bureaucrats that he moved the project to Italy, is absolutely inexplicable. What happened here? Is this why French billionaires give so little to culture?

DM : You'd have to ask M. Pinault what went wrong, but I suspect he grew tired of dealing with a glacial bureaucracy. He is not alone. You'll recall that Helmut Newton decided not to give his photographic collection to France after a similar experience. The overweening power of France's cultural mandarins may have something to do with this. In addition, France is still in the process of developing a habit of cultural philanthropy. Recent tax reforms should help encourage donations. But the mere existence of a giant bureaucracy subsidizing and controlling French culture tends to make the French feel that supporting culture is not their individual responsibility.

LZ: What is culture? How is it spread? What makes it powerful? Could we imagine the Chinese taking cultural leadership?

DM : To quote the great Duke Ellington, when asked where jazz was headed: If I knew the future of culture, I'd be there. There are many definitions of culture, but if you're talking about serious works of literature and the plastic arts, then its global influence can be measured, imprecisely, by such things as reputational surveys and auction results. This isn't the same as quality or vitality, which remains largely subjective. By the first set of measures, France is not doing so well these days. But I think books like mine are starting to ignite a national debate on re-invigorating French culture and making it more successful abroad. As for China, I recently returned from two years of teaching there. The country has a long and distinguished cultural tradition, and the contemporary art and literary scenes are exciting. But culture thrives in a climate of openness, and China is just beginning to confront this fact. The next few years will be interesting.

LZ: Should an English-speaking writer publish in France? (given how hard it is to sell foreign rights from France).

DM : A number of English-speaking writers do quite well in France: Douglas Kennedy, Nancy Huston, Diane Johnson, Stephen Clarke, Paul Auster. Many French publishers provide the kind of attention and support that their Ango-Saxon counterparts no longer do. That was certainly my experience, with Editions Denoel. And France is a warm and welcoming place for foreign writers. Even annoying ones like me. In China, I would ask my students to imagine that a foreign writer came there and wrote a book about "the death of Chinese culture." What would happen to him? I asked. Would he be fired from his teaching job? (Heads would nod around the room.) Arrested? (More heads nod.) Deported? (Everybody nods.) Well, I tell them. I am that man. And here is what happened to me in France. My arguments were reported faithfully in the major media. I was a frequent guest on French TV. France's top cultural officials invited me to have lunch, speak at their conferences and write for their in-house publications. And a pillar of the French publishing establishment gave me a book contract. So that's how you deal with your critics. And that's why I think France will always be a great place for the people who make culture, no matter where they're from.

The Death of French Culture, by Donald Morrison and Antoine Compagnon, Polity Press

Donald Morrison is former editor of Time magazine's European and Asian editions

Laurel Zuckerman is the author of Sorbonne Confidential and the editor of Paris Writers News.

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