On May 14, join authors Colombe Schneck and Sanaë Lemoine as we celebrate the launch of Colombe Schneck’s US debut, Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories (trans. by Lauren Elkin and Natasha Lehrer, Penguin Press, 2024).

Swimming in Paris is a decades-long exploration of sexuality, abortion, friendship, femininity, death, and the complicated relationships that women so often have with their own bodies. Whether conjuring a teenage abortion in the midst of a privileged Parisian upbringing, the tenderness of a long friendship, or unexpected romances, Schneck’s prose exudes an unwavering honesty, elegance, and intimacy. In Pamela Druckerman’s words, “Schneck offers a periscopic view into bourgeois Paris and captures the terror and truth of love like only a Frenchwoman can.”

Written in a style that evokes Annie Ernaux’s precise and intimate work on social milieu and sexuality and Deborah Levy’s profound exploration of what it means to be a woman with desires and creative ambition in this world, Swimming in Paris is a powerful meditation on a lifelong journey to reclaim the female body, accepting it for all its frailties and learning to celebrate its strength.

In English. Free with RSVP.

The event is co-organized with Villa Albertine and is a part of the Authors on Tour program. Colombe Schneck’s 2024 US tour is made possible by Villa Albertine.

 COLOMBE SCHNECK is documentary film director, a journalist, and the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction. She has received prizes from the Académie française, Madame Figaro, and the Société des gens de lettres. The recipient of a scholarship from the Villa Medici in Rome as well as a Stendhal grant from the Institut français, she was born and educated in Paris, where she still lives.

SANAË LEMOINE is a novelist and former cookbook editor who has worked for Martha Stewart and Phaidon Press. She is the author of The Margot Affair, a New York Times Editors’ Choice pick, and the co-author of two cookbooks. Sanaë was a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in 2022. Born to a Japanese mother and French father, she was raised in France and Australia, and now lives in Brooklyn.

Photos credits: © Jean-François Paga / © Frances F Denny