Small Lives

"His chef-d'oeuvre. A bolt of lightning."--"Le Monde""An astonishingly rich, mythic new direction in modern French narrative."--Guy Davenport"Michon demonstrates the independence of voice that marks a true writer. . . . His supple prose, dappled with chiaroscuro effects, is used in straight forward chronicles. But his writing can at any time lift or lower into semi-hallucinatory effects that recall Arthur Rimbaud's assaults on conventional perception."--Roger Shattuck, "The New York Review of Books""The emotion, the forceful claims of the imagery, the painting of the starry night: Mr. Michon achieves what other writers wouldn't try, licensed as he is by keen regret and transfigured loss. More than other writers, Mr. Michon misses the poetry of the past, and in missing it he possesses it."--Benjamin Lytal, "The New York Sun"In "Lives Under Glass," recipient of the Prix France Culture, Pierre Michon paints portraits of eight inspiring individuals living in his native village of Creuse. In this evocative poetic narrative, the quest to breathe life into the stories of these individuals becomes an exploration of Michon's own voice and memory.Born in 1945 in the Creuse region of France, Pierre Michon attended university at Clermont-Ferrand and wrote his Master's thesis on Antonin Artaud. He has received the Grand Prix SGDL de literature (2004), the Prix Decembre (2002), the Prix Louis Guilloux (1997), and the Prix de la Ville de Paris (1996).Jody Gladding is a translator and poet. Her translations include Jean Giono's "The Serpent of Stars" (Archipelago Books), among others, and her "Stone Crop" appeared in the Yale Younger Poets Series. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award in poetry. Gladding has a collection of poetry forthcoming from Milkweed Editions.