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On rain, paperback, 2011
Chronics revealing the link between the rain and the music, the erotism or the sacralization of the world, this essay is anything but a manual of meteorology.
Philosophical and poetic, this book an apology of the rain.
To achieve this, the author does not hesitate to use weapons of novelist : imagination and magic.
The tone is serious, and constantly nourished by historical, artistic and scientific works, which are likely, if not true.
Martin Page does a resolutely proselyte work : he wants to convert the reader to his passion for precipitation.
When you will know that rain is a “gentle monster”, “carries with the genes of childhood” and “allow to fall in love without purpose”, you stand up your eyes to watch the clouds.
This praise on the love of rain is as refreshing as sparkling.
The battle against my bed, drawings by Sandrine Bonini.
Publishing house : éditions Le Baron Perché
La mauvaise habitude d’être soi (avec Quentin Faucompré), éditions de l’Olivier, the 4th of november 2010.
Un homme, fatigué d’être lui-même, décide de disparaître un temps pour expérimenter le plaisir de n’être plus personne ; un autre, au hasard d’une analyse de sang, voit sa vie basculer car on a découvert qu’il n’était pas un véritable homo sapiens mais un spécimen en voie de disparition ; un dernier déménage pour s’installer à l’intérieur de lui-même, en toute intimité. Entre Dino Buzzati et Roald Dahl, ces sept histoires, écrites par Martin Page et dessinées par Quentin Faucompré, mettent en scène des personnages à l’identité vacillante. Les deux artistes partagent un imaginaire plein de noirceur et d’humour. De leur rencontre naît un livre hors normes, où les dessins de l’un viennent intensifier l’étrangeté des histoires de l’autre, et inversement.
Quentin Faucompré est né en 1979. Il a un trait souple et minimal, ses dessins ont souvent une dimension onirique. Véritable électron libre, il mène de front expositions, performances, projets collectifs (L’Armée noire, éditions Al Dante, 2010), bandes dessinées et recueils de dessins (aux éditions MeMo, les Requins Marteaux, le Dernier Cri, etc.).
Le club des inadaptés, éditions l’école des loisirs (children book) ,14th of october 2010
Martin et ses amis se doutaient bien que cela arriverait un jour, que l’un d’entre eux finirait par se faire tabasser, simplement à cause de sa façon de s’habiller ou de ses bizarreries. Ça aurait pu tomber sur Bakary, tellement bon en maths qu’il énerve tout le monde ; sur Fred, le musicien, qui se teint les cheveux en vert ; ou même sur Martin, particulièrement doué pour l’ironie. Finalement,
c’est arrivé au plus gentil d’entre eux, à Erwan, le bricoleur de la bande, dont le seul tort est de porter une cravate et des chaussures cirées.
Et c’est comme si cette agression avait blessé les trois autres. Au collège, ils deviennent encore plus distants.
La moindre injustice met leurs nerfs à vif. La colère circule en eux, leur donnant une énergie folle ! Ils veulent agir, mais à leur manière… forcément particulière.
Le rire de résistance, tome 2, sous la direction de Jean-Michel Ribes, octobre 2010, Beaux-Arts éditions.
De Jules Renard à Marc Twain, de Reiser à Cioran, de Pierre Dac à Michael Moore, de Georges Feydeau aux dadaïstes, de Shuji Terayama à Antoine Blondin, de Théophile de Viau à Karl Valentin ou de Frédéric Dard à Erasme en passant par les Moustache Brothers, Louis Scutenaire, Willem, Pierre Etaix ou George Bernard Shaw, sont salués ici ceux qui, comme dans le tome I du Rire de résistance, se sont opposés à toutes les hégémonies par un rire en éclats.
Penguin 75 : Designers, Authors, Commentary,6, july 2010, Penguin
edited by Paul Buckley
forword by Chris Ware
High standards in art and design have always been part of Penguin’s publishing program. Now, on the occasion of Penguin’s 75th anniversary, longtime art director Paul Buckley has chosen seventy-five covers that represent the best of what Penguin has produced over the course of the last decade. Giving readers a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse into the complex creation of a book’s cover, Penguin 75 includes comments from authors, agents, and editors, as well as the designers and artists themselves. This witty and irreverent journey into the book world will appeal to lovers of art, design, and, of course, books.
With Contributions By:
Paul Auster * Tara McPherson * Daniel Clowes * David Byrne * Elizabeth Gilbert * Joe Sacco * Tana French * T.C. Boyle * Seth * Tom Gauld * William T. Vollmann * Art Spiegelman * Kim Edwards * Melissa Bank * Ruben Toledo * Tomer Hanuka * Jamie Keenan * Roz Chast * Garrison Keillor * Yoshihiro Tatsumi * Sam Weber * Paul Sahre * Tony Millionaire * Nicholas Blechman * Jon Gray * Martin Page * Victor Pelevin * Moustafa Bayoumi and many others!
La disparition de Paris et sa renaissance en Afrique (The disappearance of Paris and its rebirth in Africa), éditions de l’Olivier, 2010
Mathias, a young man who works for the cabinet of the mayor of Paris as the writer of speeches and notes is by chance given an extremely delicate mission. He must imagine a way to repair the offence made to Fata Okoumi, an extremely wealthy African businesswoman who has been seriously injured by a policeman to whom she refused to show her identity card. The incident is on the verge of becoming a State affair given the importance of the woman. But there is something even more serious: when Fata Okoumi reveals to the narrator her desire to destroy Paris , Mathias is first terrified then slowly gives in to the desire to grant her this strange wish.
With Martin Page, there is always a “crazy” idea at the origin of the story. Here it is the disappearance of Paris . Like in all his novels, the originality stemming from this craziness is told with realism. This alliance of contraries – madness and logic – is at the heart of the writing of this novel about disappearance and rebirth: somber and lively, joyous and melancholic, nihilist and idealistic, light and grave.
A perfect day, Points Seuil (paperback), 14, january, 2010
Say that is the story of the day of a man whose main occupation is to commit suicide with revolver, hanging, a razor blade, a daily dose of anxiolytics and barbiturates, anti-personnel mines nestled under the tiles of his apartment, electric shock. From sunrise to sunset, at home, in the street, at work, at the funeral of his friends, the fate of a man who could be normal. In fact everything would be fine whether his doctor had announce him that a shark is swimming in his body. Fortunately for him, a Mexican quartet appears regularly, and interprets a song.
This is a hallucinated novel, and at the same time very reasonable. The tone is dry and sarcastic. The writing is full of metaphors that gives to the text a taste of supernatural and poetic reverie. If the world seems absurd, saw by this employee who can not end his days, it is also the place of a kind of freedom, sickly and ironic. For example, the hero cultivates a garden in his apartment, and he spend up to a week’s holiday in his elevator. Nonchalant glance at the novel Harold & Maude and at the movie Groundhog Day, A perfect day is also full of musical references.
100 monuments 100 writers / stories about France, éditions du Patrimoine, december 5, 2009
From the cave of Font-de-Gaume to the Villa Savoye, from the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel to the Salses fortress, from the Carnac alignments to the Trophy of Augustus at La Turbie, from the Sainte-Chapelle to the château of Bussy-Rabutin, or from the château of Azay-le-Rideau to the Abbey of Cluny, the hundred or so monuments and sites that the Centre des monuments nationaux [National Monuments Centre] preserves, restores, maintains, opens to visitors and runs, offer a varied approach to the history of our country as well as an enjoyable and fascinating journey in its geography.
In this single work, each monument is presented in a two-fold way: a litterary one, through a “carte blanche” given to a hundred writers, and a historical one, entrusted to the administrators of the sites.
Illustrations take pride of place in this book with an original iconography composed of pictures taken on purpose by Karim Ben Khelifa, Waldemar Gielarek, François Le Diascorn and Caroline Rose, a selection of photographs from agencies such as Magnum (Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry Gruyart Richard Kalvar, Erich Lessing, Gueorgi Pinkhassov …), photographs by Robert Doisneau, Lucien Hervé and Willy Ronis, and others from former and current funds of the Centre des monuments nationaux.
With :
Eliette Abecassis, Brigitte Allègre, Philippe Amelot, Jacques Attali, Michel Arrivé, Pierre Assouline, Christian Authier, Robert Badinter, Dominique Barbéris, Thierry Beinstingel, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, Philippe Besson, Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès, François Bon, Vincent Brocvielle, Laure Buisson, Renaud Camus, Claro, Pierre Cleitman, Nicolas d’Estienne d’Orves, Didier Daeninckx, Charles Dantzig, Amélie de Bourbon-Parme, Adélaide de Clermont-Tonnerre, Camille de Toledo, Maryline Desbiolles, Regine Detambel, Marie Didier, Philippe di Folco, Christophe Donner, Hélène Duffau, Mathias Enard, Nicolas Fargues, Alain Fleischer, Elise Fontenaille, Philippe Garnier, Adrien Goetz, Didier Goupil, Philippe Grimbert, Pauline Guena, Hubert Haddad, Stéphane Héaume, Thierry Illouz, Isabelle Jarry, Jean-Noël Jeanneney, François Jonquet, Pierre Jourde, René Koering, Julia Kristeva, Jean-Marie Laclavetine, Philippe Lacoche, Cécile Ladjali, Jérôme Lambert, Marc Lambron, Sébastien Lapaque, Mathieu Larnaudie, Camille Laurens, Linda Lê, Stéphane Levy Kuentz, Gila Lustiger, Arnaud Maisetti, Carole Martinez, Brice Matthieussent, Catherine Millet, Marc Molk, Denis Montebello, Gérard Mordillat, Marie Nimier, Hubert Nyssen, Martin Page, Laurence Plazenet, Serge Pey, Emmanuel Pierrat, Jean-Bernard Pouy, Jérôme Prieur, Zahia Rahmani, François Raynaert, Rudy Ricciotti, Danièle Sallenave, Julien Santoni, Leïla Sebbar, Jacques Serena, Thierry Serfati, Martine Sonnet, Pascal Torres, Lyonel Trouillot, Marc Villemain
Treaty on Mirrors to Make Dragons Appear (children book), L’école des loisirs
The other day at the library, Martin’s life changed. Marie told him that she loved him. That she wanted to go out with him. Her, Marie, the girl who makes his heart mad. Martin inevitably fell in love. Everything else could be forgotten: a future without hope, the death of his mother, his father’s eccentricities and survival at middle school. Even the party to come for his dog burial could be forgotten. Martin said yes, yes, and yes again. But it only lasted sixty minutes.
Then Martin and Marie became just friends again. Because Marie made a mistake. Because love can’t be explained. Because existence is a dirty, depopulated wasteland. Because Martin’s heart is Swiss cheese with holes full of ghosts and dragons. Because what?
Heartbreak has strange responses to reason and logic. That works out well, because Martin has a whole lot of heart and imagination.
Peut-être une histoire d’amour ((Perhaps a love affair/ The discreet pleasures of rejection), Points Seuil (paperback)
Returning home from an ordinary day at the office, Virgil finds a rather disturbing message on his answerering machine : Clara informs him that she is leaving him. Virgil is used to women leaving him, for him it is even “more a certainty than gravity”, but he jas no recollection of this so-called Clara. He panics, wonders if he’s seriously ill or amnesiac, runs to his shrink, thinks again about one of those “reality accidents” that are always happening to him and asks his good friend Armelle, a fortune-teller in real life, for advice. Failling to get a satisfactory answer, he ends up making an unexpected decision : to win back this woman he doesn’t know…
Perhaps a Love Affair is a romantic comedy whose charm rests entirely on the character of Virgil, an off-killer, scatterbrained hero, an elegant and comical lover, a model employee but a closet rebel. He resembles the character Antoine in How I became stupid, altough he is perhaps ten years older. Martin Page channels Boris Vian in his witty, poetic writing with a hint of Brit humor. The stories he tells, miles away from the stuff of ordinary life, are fables transporting us into reverie, humor, and constant twists and turns.
Collection irraisonnée de préfaces à des livres fétiches, éditions Intervalles
“In talking together, a few months ago, we wanted to do a collective work which would be neither a manifesto nor the birth of a movement, a group or any fraternity, but simply a collective expression.
Let everyone come and talk, as a writer, about a text that has marked his life as his reading or writing.
Whether done in a spirit of sharing and intimacy, not to result in a “ideal” library, not to assert any genealogy flattering, but a sincere tribute.
Let everyone come “together” as they say, it’s that simple. Because that is what we do when we start to know each other better. And since we’re writers, we hope that everyone comes with a book.
We discovered many texts sometimes rare, often unrecognized, still adored by friends who gave us want to see more closely, through this collection of short prefaces.
We wish you the same happiness. The same discoveries. The same meetings of books and authors.”
Thomas B. Reverdy and Martin Page
With Jakuta Alikavazovic, Philippe Besson Jean-Philippe Blondel, Patrick Boman, Philippe Bonilo, Geneviève Brisac, Arnaud Cathrine, Kéthévane Davrichewy, Roxane Duru, Olivia Elkaim, Dominique Fabre, Philippe Forest, Paul Fournel, Vanessa Gault, Jean-Baptiste Gendarme, Valentine Goby, Patrick Goujon, Elizabeth Guyon Spennato, Theo Hakola, Thierry Hesse, Stéphane Heuet, Stéphanie Hochet, Thierry Illouz, Nathalie Kuperman, Cécile Ladjali, Marie-Hélène Lafon, Jérôme Lambert, Diane Meur, Nicolas Michel, Marc Molk, Dominique Noguez, Sébastien Ortiz, Véronique Ovaldé, Martin Page, Aude Picault, Thomas B. Reverdy, Cécile Reyboz, Laurent Sagalovitsch, Laurence Tardieu, Jacques Tournier, Sylvain Venayre, Emmanuel Venet, Hélèna Villovitch et Carole Zalberg.