Old-school publisher meets e-reader: chaos ensues

There's a lot of good to be said about publishing, mainly about the food. The books, though - Robert Dubois feels as if he's read the books, but still they keep coming back to him, the same old books just by new authors. Maybe he's ready to settle into the end of his career, like it's a tipsy afternoon after a working lunch. But then he is confronted with a gift: a piece of technology, a gizmo, a reader...

Dear Reader takes a wry, affectionate look at the world of publishing, books and authors, and is a very funny, moving story about the passing of the old and the excitement of the new.

Paul Fournel was born in 1947. He worked as a publisher with Ramsay & Seghers, and chaired the Societe des gens de lettres. He was head of the Alliance Francaise in San Francisco, and a cultural attache in Cairo and London. He now writes full time and cycles during the rest of the day. As a third full-time job, he is the Provisionally Definitive Secretary and President of the literary collective known as Oulipo, whose members have included George Perec and Italo Calvino, among many others. He is also the author of numerous novels, short stories, plays, memoirs, and poetry.

David Bellos is Director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication at Princeton University, where he is also Professor of French and Comparative Literature. He has won many awards for his translations of Georges Perec, Ismail Kadare and others, including the Man Booker Translator Award, and received the Prix Goncourt de la biographie for George Perec: A Life in Words.

Translated by: David Bellos