Work-related novels from France to help you escape
An emerging genre of fiction in France is providing an unlikely brand of escapism. Growing numbers of French writers are choosing work as their subject matter, and it seems that readers can’t get enough of their novels.
The Prix du roman d’entreprise et du travail, the annual French prize for the best business or work-related novel, is testament to the sustained popularity of workplace fiction across the Channel. Place de la Médiation, the body which set up the prize in 2009, is a training organisation specialising in mediation, the prevention of psychosocial risks, and quality of life at work. Co-organiser Technologia is a work-related risk prevention consultancy, which helps companies to evaluate health,
safety and organisational issues.
The novels shortlisted for the prize in the past 10 years reflect a broad range of jobs and sectors and a whole gamut of experiences. The texts clearly strike a chord with French readers, but English translations of these novels suggest many of the themes broached resonate in Anglo-Saxon culture too.
The prize certainly seeks to acknowledge a pre-existing literary interest in the theme of work. This is unsurprising in the wake of the global financial crisis and the changes and challenges this has brought.
But the organisers also express a desire to actively mobilise fiction in a bid to help chart the often choppy waters of the modern workplace: “Through the power of fiction, [we] want to put the human back at the heart of business, to show the possibilities of a good quality professional life, and to relaunch social dialogue by bringing together in the [prize] jury all the social actors and specialists of the business world.”
What better way to delve into this unusual genre than by reading some of the previous prizewinners. Below are four books to get you started.
UNDERGROUND TIME
The first prize was awarded to Delphine de Vigan for Les
heures souterraines, or Underground Time. In this novel, the paths of a bullied marketing executive and a beleaguered oncall doctor converge and intersect as they traverse Paris over the course of a working day.
A TV adaptation followed, and an English translation was published by Bloomsbury in 2011. Work-related journeys and the underground as a symbol for the unseen side of working life have proved enduring themes, picked up by several subsequent winners. MAN WHO RISKED IT ALL Laurent Gounelle’s Dieu voyage
toujours incognito, winner of the 2011 prize, takes us from the depths of the underground to the top of the Eiffel Tower, where Alan Greenmor’s suicide attempt is interrupted by a mysterious stranger. Yves promises to teach him the secrets to happiness and success if Alan agrees to do whatever he asks. This intriguing premise caught the attention of selfhelp, inspirational and transformational publisher Hay House, whose translation appeared in 2014.
THE READER ON THE 6.27
by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent, the 2015 winner, tells the story of a reluctant book-pulping machine operative. Each day, Ghislain Vignolles rescues a few random pages from destruction, to read aloud to his fellow commuters in the morning train. The novel crystallises the fraught relationship between intellectual life and manual work. It also illustrates the tension between culture and commerce, arguably at its most pronounced in France, where cultural policy has traditionally insisted on the distinction between cultural artefacts and commercial products. The Independent review of the English translation describes the book as “a delightful tale about the kinship of reading”.
WOMAN AT SEA
Catherine Poulain’s Le
grand marin, the 2017 winner, is a rather more earnest account of work at sea. The author draws on her own experiences to recount narrator Lili’s travails in the male-dominated world of Alaskan fishing.
Le grand marin (the great sailor) is ostensibly the nickname Lili gives to her seafaring lover. The relationship is something of a red herring, though, as the overriding passion in this novel is work.
But the English title perhaps does Lili a disservice — she is less a floundering Woman at Sea, and more the true grand marin of the original.
This year’s shortlist includes the story of a forgotten employee left to his own devices when his company is restructured, a professional fall from grace in the wake of the Bataclan terrorist attack, and a second novel from Poulain, with seasonal work in Provence the backdrop this time.
The common draw, as before — and somewhat ironically, given the subject matter — is escapism. We are afforded either a tantalising glimpse into the working lives of others, or else a fresh perspective on our own. English readers will be fascinated by the French details and universal themes and translators’ pens are sure to be poised.