We at The New York Review Children's Collection are very excited to unveil our latest discovery: a previously unknown children's book by Georges Simenon. Simenon is best known for his detective novels featuring Commissaire Maigret and for his dark non-Maigret romans durs, or "hard novels," which are united by their depiction of the world as a bleak and pitiless place.
The manuscript of L'Ourse qui regardait passer les trains was discovered among a large cache of papers located in the attic of Shadow Rock Farm in Lakeville, Connecticut, where Simenon lived with his wife and children in the 1950s. The Bear Who Watched the Trains Go By, as the English translation will be called, is based on the stories with which Simenon entertained his youngest son and daughter. According a forthcoming article to be printed inTraces: Revue éditée par le Centre d'études Georges Simenon, published by the University of Liège in Belgium, there are believed to be an additional one hundred twenty-three stories featuring the morally compromised anithero bear.
How will the public respond to a book aimed at impressionable minds by a someone known as "the man of 10,000 women"? "That might fly in France or Montreal, but I can tell you that I will certainly not be recommending this book to our clients" assures Larry Millbank, president of the Home Schooling Book Network of Peoria, Illinois. However, Simenon expert Félicité Profitendieu, who has read the book in the original French, pronounces it "très charmant."
We will be bringing you the latest on this thrilling project in the coming months. In the meantime, for you can find out more here.
I have a book of photographs of writers and their desk and it offers a picture of Simenon and his desk... very proper, you know the type... Thanks for the post.
Posted by: JCR | April 02, 2007 at 10:08 AM