At her desk

julie at her desk
so busy typing away
building a story

It had been years I hadn't seen Julie so engrossed in the production of a text. No, cross that out. I'd never seen her so engrossed in the production of a text.

It's been going on for weeks now and it's growing.

Meanwhile, my computer crashed. Yep, you've read that right; of course, as I'm writing this, you must wonder if it did for good, or not! To be continued... ;-)

Not being able to work allowed me to take some time to read and I dove into one of my favourite French authors, Martin Winckler (long story short: this is a pseudonym, and the last name is the name of a character in Perec's Life: A User's Manual, which is one of my best-loved French novels). I might have hinted at it already, it's the sequel, of sorts, to Women's Chorus, and is called Nursheing School (my translation). It is a wonderful, wonderful novel, full of empathy, beyond LGBTQIA+-friendly with gay, bi, trans people, where the narrator is a man called Hannah (yep, you read this right too) who was raised by two women... It's also very avant-garde in the way it is written: French is a gendered language, and the rule is that when both males and females are involved in a description, it's the masculine gender that is used grammatically. Well, not here: the situation is reversed and it's the feminine that is used. Also, Winckler, when it is needed, uses what we call "inclusive language" which makes obvious graphically that both genders are included in the discourse. The mark of inclusive language is the interpunct (·). For example, conducteur·ice shows that both a male ("conducteur") or female ("conductrice") driver is meant. Suffice it to say it is the most beautiful book I've read in a long while (probably since Women's Chorus, come to think of it ;-) ) and is most definitely the only book that's made me cry from a mix of feelings because of the author's craft in telling his story and balancing drama, humour, tension and relief. I'd tell you to read it (well, you can if you read French!), but you'll have to wait until I've translated it. Oh, wait, no, it's only that I loved it so much that I would love to translate it to allow a wider audience to read it, too! I've taken notes while reading and jotted down typos and mistakes, so I'll write Marc (Marc Zaffran is his real name) and tell him about it and, incidentally, ask if a translation of the novel is under way... I'll keep you posted!