Why don't French books sell abroad?

[Penforhire]

Luc Besson would disagree and I cite Nikita in particular (though there is also his The Fifth Element, The Professional, The Transporter, Kiss of the Dragon ...).

[Fbone]

Does anyone have recommendations?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Luc Besson would disagree and I cite Nikita in particular (though there is also his The Fifth Element, The Professional, The Transporter, Kiss of the Dragon ...).

Luc Besson has done some very good work but I don't think he'd put Fifth Element in the same league as Nikita or the Professional. Not considering its theatrical performance. ($$$$$)

[ShimSham]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

This reminds me of a different phenomenon, a fair amount of Swedish authors, and let's face reality, they're never going to be global barnstormers, are quite popular in Germany and their works appear in German just a month or so after being released in Sweden. However, there is nothing coming the other way. I'm not overly familiar with the German literary scene but if I want to read someone like Oliver Pötzsch I have to get hold of the original because no Swedish translation is available. Perhaps some of our German members can shed some light on this discrepancy?

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

Scandinavian and especially Swedish crime stories seem to be a crime sub-genere of its own in Germany. That's where the specific demand comes from.
Being no reader of crime stories in general I cannot say why it is so - what the attributes of the 'Swedish school' in treating the canvas of crime are, but there must be something distinctive enough for the readers that marketeers can work with

Scandinavian crime fiction is also very popular in the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/posts/...-crime-fiction

And in recent years foreign crime dramas have been doing very well on UK television.

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Luc Besson would disagree and I cite Nikita in particular (though there is also his The Fifth Element, The Professional, The Transporter, Kiss of the Dragon ...).

The 5th Element, Kiss of the Dragon and Leon have not been originally done completely in French and there is US cooperation involved from the beginning on.

Night watch is a purely Danish movie redone in English.

[Kumabjorn]

At the risk of becoming a target for a flame war; What has a French director to do with French authors?

[Freeshadow]

6th post, sidetrack to which I first answered re movies and music
Don't think it 'll go flamy here, we are still into facts.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

6th post, sidetrack to which I first answered re movies and music
Don't think it 'll go flamy here, we are still into facts.

Also a relevant counter to the idea that the french (people) no longer understand storytelling. Books it might be debatable () but plenty of French movies do storytelling well. Some even travel cross-borders.

Books published through a traditionalist, "literary culture" system, however, are as much a product of the entrenched filtering system as they are the authors'. Which means that the gatekeepers (agents, publishers, and bookstore buyers) might simply be filtering out the kind of books that might be of interest to bestseller-focused "anglosaxon" agents. Most of whom, btw, are a wee bit concerned with the deep disruption of *their* "literary culture" that is changing the rules of their game.

That said, I'd be interested in seeing some numbers of sales volume for French mid-listers, since literary culture is really characterized by the mid-list. Bestsellers I found range from roughly 500K to 1.5M, but I couldn't find anything on the mid-list to contrast with the known US baselines.

[ApK]

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”
― Steve Martin

[Penforhire]

Kuma, in case you did not know it, Luc Besson is not only the director. He wrote most (all?) of his works. We are talking about French writing, non? :-)

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

The article only mentioned Amazon in reference to French laws designed to keep bookstores open. I would say Amazon is the villain de la décennie for bookstores, no matter which country.

Amazon's file format is mobi, which if I recall was originally a French company. I got no point for this post, just an interesting observation.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Kuma, in case you did not know it, Luc Besson is not only the director. He wrote most (all?) of his works. We are talking about French writing, non? :-)

I see. I only know him as a movie director. I guess that just puts more focus on the lack of French authors being unknown outside France. Even if they are successfull they remain unknowns.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Both my former BIL and my college buddy's wife say the same thing. Neither have found more than a half dozen keeper novels from their native country. Could be the French just don't know how to write mysteries, thrillers or sci fi.

Ah, but romance, now, that's another story. (or genre) I haven't read any modern French books but historically they did do romantic novels well, at least IMO.

[barutanseijin]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Both my former BIL and my college buddy's wife say the same thing. Neither have found more than a half dozen keeper novels from their native country. Could be the French just don't know how to write mysteries, thrillers or sci fi.

I don't read much science fiction, but even i know that Jules Verne was one of the early pioneers of the genre. After that there's Pierre Boulle's la Planete des singes, which you may know from the Hollywood adaptations.

Rather than faulting writers for neglecting to write detective fiction & thrillers, i'd say that in the francophone world, BD (comics) occupy a lot of the space that genre fiction does in the anglosphere. (Some of this work has even influenced the english speaking world. Think Barbarella & Moebius.)

Judging from the greater number of translations available in French bookstores, i think francophone readers and/or publishers may be more open to literature in translation. For example, many if not all of Japanese novelist Nakagami Kenji's works have been translated into French. Nakagami was well-regarded, but wrote -- gasp! -- literary fiction about difficult, touchy topics like discrimination. He's the kind of writer you'd expect to see translated into a larger market rather than a smaller one. Only it doesn't work out that way these days. English readers have to learn Japanese or make do with the handful of short stories that have been translated into English. At any rate, the point of all this is to say that it's possible the lack of interest in French writers is more a product of anglophone insularity than the shortcomings of French writers.

[barutanseijin]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Both my former BIL and my college buddy's wife say the same thing. Neither have found more than a half dozen keeper novels from their native country. Could be the French just don't know how to write mysteries, thrillers or sci fi.

I don't read much science fiction, but even i know that Jules Verne was one of the early pioneers of the genre. After that there's Pierre Boulle's <i>la Planète des singes</i>, which you may know from the Hollywood adaptations.

Rather than faulting writers for neglecting to write detective fiction & thrillers, i'd say that in the francophone world, BD (comics) occupy a lot of the space that genre fiction does in the anglosphere. (Some of this work has even influenced the english speaking world. Think Barbarella & Moebius.)

Judging from the greater number of translations available in French bookstores, i think francophone readers and/or publishers may be more open to literature in translation. For example, many if not all of Japanese novelist Nakagami Kenji's works have been translated into French. Nakagami was well-regarded, but wrote -- gasp! -- literary fiction about difficult, touchy topics like discrimination. He's the kind of writer you'd expect to see translated into a larger market rather than a smaller one. Only it doesn't work out that way these days. English readers have to learn Japanese or make do with the handful of short stories that have been translated into English. At any rate, the point of all this is to say that it's possible the lack of interest in French writers is more a product of anglophone insularity than the shortcomings of French writers.