French Media Spotlight American Writer's Quest to Overhaul French Grammar

French media giant "Le Nouvel Obs" and others fuel the literary crusade of a Paris-published US author who writes in French.

2012-03-22

March 22, 2012 (Press-News.org) "Erik Orsenna, dictator of grammar! Look, you're killing the French language!" the rapidly-becoming viral video went (OK, viral by French not American standards).

Then the number 2 magazine group of France called "Le Nouvel Obs" picked up the story as did many literary websites (see attachments on right-hand side of this text.)

Some of these press releases start with those very same angry words, the aggressive words pronounced by the author on the video against French grammar.

The problem is that the author on the video is in fact an American citizen, legally not French one bit, not even French Canadian. Which means that the above-mentioned typically French declaration of war on all things grammar had been launched by a US author !

Mickael Korvin's novels are published by prestigious parisian houses such as Les Belles Lettres, Actes Sud, Le Rocher, Jacqueline Chambon. And he has translated Iggy Pop into French, among many others. The bilingual American author thinks he's on mission: to help bring the French language back into the boxing ring. How? By simplifying the grammatical rules. Unrealistic? Maybe that's why he's called his 8th book "Diary of a Lost Cause"!

In order to get his message through, the novelist has made alliance with a notoriously hardcore Franco-Algerian rapper called Morsay, who's no limits videos get hundreds of thousands of hits.

So what caused the scandal is that video they posted together on youtube is the most violent that has struck the French literary community for years. Becaue it's a video that challenges France's #1 grammatician Erik Orsenna - who also happens to be a member of the French Academy of Literature. In a country where distinguished writers are still seen as sacred cows and grammar as the last defense against the barbarians, this controversy is all the rage.

parisvibrations.com is a new French literary publishing house. For more info and media requests please visit our website.

to see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw250qIP0oc

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French Media Spotlight American Writer's Quest to Overhaul French Grammar

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