Essais Documents Le New York Des Ecrivains

A WRITERS' NEW YORK "I wanted to ask 13 writers to write a short story about New York. I chose the city because it is still synonymous with dreams. It haunts our European imaginations like nowhere else. Through film, literature, photography... it inhabits our subconscious and is an enduring source of pleasure. The second reason I chose it is that, even though the city fascinates us, paradoxically few French writers have really got to grips with it. With this in mind, it seemed obvious to me to ask French writers to take on the great city. Not only obvious but important because it was a beautiful and risky undertaking: what could be more stimulating for a writer than to confront a myth? What greater challenge (to paraphrase Flaubert) than to sidestep the clichés that fill our heads? And the final reason was that this city strikes me as being the exact opposite of Paris. The preferred setting for Parisians tends to be a mood of lamentation... which makes New York something of an emergency exit."In this collection of short stories, 13 French writers and one illustrator have created an original portrait of New York. They invite us to explore a city that is both real and imagined, full of ghosts and steel, each capturing it in his or her own way. This mosaic builds up a picture that is full of poetry and surprises, of modernity and inspiration. Vincent Jaury is the founder and editor in chief of the arts magazine Transfuge. He edited the collection of short stories Noël, quel bonheur ! published in 2012. He is a great enthusiast of American literature.