BLUEBEARD'S WORKSHOP & OTHER STORIES Pierre Furlan

Victoria University Press NZ$30

NOTE - PUBLICATION DATE 22 MAY, 2007

Pierre Furlan is one of the overseas writers appearing at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival (24-27 May) and judging by this classy, often naughty and always entertaining collection , "An Hour with Pierre Furlan" on Friday 25 May at 3.30pm will be well worth attending. (I especially enjoyed the title story).

My thanks to V.U.P. supplied the following biographical notes:

PIERRE FURLAN is the author of five books of fiction, and is also a leading literary translator, of Paul Auster, Russell Banks, Alan Duff, Elizabeth Knox and Geoff Cush, amongst many others. He was the French writer in residence at the Randell Cottage in Wellington in 2004-2005, and was literary advisor to the Belles-Etrangères tour of France by 12 New Zealand writers in November 2006.
Born in southwestern France in 1943, Pierre Furlan spent his adolescence in California and studied at UC Berkeley. He then settled permanently in Paris. His translation of The Darling by Russell Banks won the 2006 Laure-Battaillon Prize for the best work translated into French.
Bluebeard’s Workshop and other stories is translated by JEAN ANDERSON, senior lecturer in French at Victoria University of Wellington.

The image to the left shows the back cover. One does not normally feature back covers but I was especially taken by both back and front covers of this handsome paperback and on further inspection found that they both feature photographs by the outstanding Auckland photographer Harvey Benge.

Victoria University Press has done us all a favour by giving exposure (no pun intended) to these two images by Benge, a photographer with a huge international reputation, especially in Europe, but one who is somewhat lesser known in his homeland.