Release of seven books in paperback, a novel in preparation… Anna Gavalda returns after ten years of absence!

This Tuesday evening, La Slow Galerie nestled at the foot of Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement of Paris is sold out from 7 p.m. There is an unusual fervor to match the event. We’re waiting for Anna Gavalda! For almost 10 years, the novelist with more than 8 million books sold with her novels like “Together, that’s all” or “La Consolante”, had disappeared from the radar.

She was kept waiting and ended up arriving around 7:30 p.m. White shirt and jeans, visibly very happy and very moved, Anna Gavalda arrives accompanied by Hélène Fiamma, number 1 of J’ai Lu, who organizes the festivities. The publishing house has just released seven books by the novelist with new and very successful covers illustrated by Japanese artist Yukiko Noritake.

Blue Parisian roofs for his best-seller “Together, that’s everything”, a woman in a garden for “I would like someone to wait for me somewhere”, all are magnificent. Like Anna Gavalda’s novels which marked an entire generation of readers seduced by her ability to tell the intimate, to sublimate the ordinary, and to offer a unique voice to her characters.

Radio silence since 2017

Her simple, sensitive and deeply human writing has made her a publishing phenomenon, translated into more than forty languages. But since her collection of short stories “Cracking the Armor” published in 2017 by Le Dilettante, her longtime publishing house, she had almost disappeared from the public scene.

Nothing very surprising for a writer who never hid the fact that she hated talking about herself. And even less show off. Eleven years ago, four years after the enormous success of “Ensemble c’est tout”, for the release of “La Consolante”, with a circulation of 200,000 copies, she refused any meeting with the press.

“Before, I was young and docile, I didn’t know how to say no and wanted to please everyone,” she wrote in a letter for journalists (…) Today, I am old and surly and would like to do as I please, that is to say, continue writing, but as discreetly as possible. Am I wrong, am I right, I don’t know. And then I always thought that my characters had more interesting lives than mine…”

For her latest book “Cracking the Armor”, only RTL literary journalist Bernard Lehut had the right to meet her. She even sent away the France 5 program “La Grande Librairie”, the media holy grail so coveted by writers. She is like that, Anna Gavalda, profoundly free and independent. Marketing, advertising campaigns and his face in the subway are really not his cup of tea.

A new novel next year?

This is perhaps why it took J’ai Lu editions two years to publish this new collection. “I was struck by the fervor of people when we talk about Anna Gavalda,” confides the boss of the publishing house. A whole generation doesn’t know her, so we embarked on this somewhat crazy adventure. »

It took months to convince the novelist who had warned them from the outset with her frankness: “No covers feel good super commercial! » Then trust was established and the experience “was fantastic”, confides the editor. Funny and modest, Anna Gavalda wanted to quickly but sincerely thank the J’ai Lu editions. And “the wonderful” Yukiko Noritake because, without her, “I would have said no to the project! »

The author also confides with a smile that months ago, while she was grinding the blades of her tractor, her editor called her to tell her that Rachida Dati wanted to award her the Legion of Honor. It was 2:30 p.m. and she had to give an answer before 5 p.m. She refused.

Very smiling and very accessible, Anna Gavalda is, on the other hand, not very talkative about her projects. To the inevitable question, “so when is your next novel coming out?” », she responds with a sparkling look as she is writing it. According to one of his close friends, we can hope to see it arrive in bookstores next year…