This Friday (17th, November), Jan Carson gave a conference at Le Hall du Livre in Nancy about her 1st novel to be translated into French: The Fire starters (Les lanceurs de feu). During her 4-month residency at the University of Lorraine, Jan Carson has held and will hold multiple events such as interviews, literature workshops, or lectures to promote and explain her work. At the event, Jan was accompanied by Philippe Claudel, the residency’s godfather, Dominique Goy-Blanquet, the novel’s French translator, two interpreters (one established and one in training) and Sabine Wespieser, her French publisher.
The latter was leading the meeting and began with explaining how she met Jan Carson totally randomly in Ljubljana. She explains that they were both there for a literature festival and got invited to the same reception in the British embassy. She got captured by the chapter Jan was reading, an extract of her fourth English novel, The Fire starters. After this event, Sabine offered to publish Jan in France. Then the author also changed her publishing house in the UK and received the European Union Prize for Literature for her book. In total, the book has been translated into 13 different languages. For the memory and the pleasure, Ms Wespieser asked Jan to read us an extract of this same chapter and she read it afterwards in French herself. After this reading, the discussion continued on the next novel of Jan, The Ruptures, (Les Ravissements), which will be released in January 2023.
Jan also writes short stories, which are becoming increasingly popular in the UK and France. She does not like to focus on one character throughout a book. Instead, she uses the principle of a collection of short stories with multiple characters to write her novels. Her novels tend to be fantasy, but Jan Carson also deals with socio-political conflicts in order to keep them grounded in reality. Anecdotally, Jan shared with us that her parents said she often exaggerated her thoughts, her imagination, which is why her books are associated with fantasyAs for the sources that inspire her, Jan reads a lot of fantasy and science fiction. Most of the authors she likes come from Argentina. These authors, often young women, write about issues that involve Argentinean socio-political problems similar to the ones in Ireland, which Jan herself is inspired by. During the meeting, Philippe Claudel finally asked Jan Carson if she could write a book about an ongoing conflict, such as the War in Ukraine. Jan replied that she had read a book by an author who wrote the day after Brexit, and that she felt it had been written too quickly. She believes that it is necessary to step back from the conflict before writing, much like you would do with a break-up.
During this event, we were lucky to be seated next to the wonderful translator Dominique Goy-Blanquet, but also to see a very talented painter in action (see photo). It appears that he comes to each conference that Jan Carson gives and paints the scene.
Alexane Edgard & Marie Legedza, M1 LEA LECSI
