French
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Learning and Loving in French
Supposedly, the best way to master a foreign language is to fall in love with a native speaker. Language, in delineating a boundary that can be transgressed, is full of romantic potential. … If first languages are reservoirs of emotion,…
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Spotlight: The Rumpus Review of Panthers in the Hole
Brandon Hicks reviews Panthers in the Hole, a new graphic novel from by Bruce and David Cénou.
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Reading Mademoiselle Gantrel
We squinted into the smoky room and saw ourselves on junior year abroad, frolicking on the Left Bank with artists in berets like hers.
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Scarf as Signifier
In honor of the upcoming centennial birthday of French literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes, Hermés is releasing a limited-edition scarf designed in his honor. The New Yorker will gladly demystify that commodity for you.
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The Rumpus Interview with Etgar Keret
Writer Etgar Keret talks about his new memoir The Seven Good Years, the early criticism he faced as a writer, and the surreal that is always waiting.
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The Rumpus Interview with Kate Walbert
Author Kate Walbert talks about her new novel, The Sunken Cathedral, about the way cities change over time, and her approach to using footnotes in fiction.
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The Man Who Brings Us France
A profile on Arthur Goldhammer, who has translated over 100 books from French to English. As a translator, Goldhammer tries to find a pragmatic middle-ground between literalism and freestyle. The goal is to be faithful to the contents of a…
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Word of the Day: Atelier
(n.); artist’s studio or workshop; c. 1840, from the old French astelier (“carpenter’s workshop, woodpile”) “Part of what I loved about poetry was how the distinction between fiction and nonfiction didn’t obtain,” [Lerner] says, “how the correspondence between text and…
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Poems from Guantanamo
In 2010, French poet Frank Smith took the transcripts of the initial combatant status review tribunals from Guantanamo and turned them into a book of poetry. The New Inquiry looks at Vanessa Place’s recent English translation of Smith’s Guantanamo.
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Mavis Gallant and Monsieur Le Verbe
Alors, Mademoiselle, have you noticed how we French, unlike our Anglo-Saxon friends, use all the muscles in our face and mouth when speaking? Raise your upper lip toward your nose. When performed correctly, this action will cause the nostrils to…
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Learning French, And Other Escapes
“Here I am wanting some other language to rescue me, wanting some escape route, when the very desire to transform, to mean something in the world, to take to the air, is such a chubby little caterpillar urge. If I…
