Why I write in English when I'm French :

The story in The Covery and Then was completed years ago in my head (as well as five more novels yet to be written). Therefore I feel safe saying the story has been waiting for twenty years to be released. However, I was unable to actually phrase it and make it fit into words. I have written other novels in French that were successfully published. But I just could not make it happen for this story. Then one day I was working on a distinct project: a fantasy story I had in mind, which to me is very visual. I intended to write the script and have an illustrator draw it for me. It seemed to me that, short of a movie, a comic book was the best way to tell this story. The illustrator I found, however, did not speak French. So, I set out writing a synopsis for her in English. It was not much at first, but soon I realised my synopsis developed into something much more elaborate. I found details that could not be made explicit in images, and finally this project completely changed. Then I wanted to write a long novel and have a few illustrations here and there. The scope of the whole thing escaped me and what was a one-comic project is now meant to become a series of four 500-or-so pages-long novels.

At the same time, I was struggling with another attempt at writing The Covery in French. Then, it struck me that the other project turned out the way it did because of the genre. You see, most of the fantasy and the science-fiction I read are written in English. Somehow, my brain associates the genres with the language they are written in.

Out of curiosity, I decided to see what would happen if I tried writing The Covery in English. And it practically wrote itself. Three weeks later, the manuscript was completed. It had taken me twenty years and three weeks. Then, I started looking for a publisher in the US. And when you're French, without an agent, and trying to sell this kind of story, it is a very long road...

During the time it took to find a publisher and edit the text, a French publisher showed an interest in one of my other French books, and he liked my work so much that he asked me to translate the Covery for publication in France. Translating was a nightmare. It took me eight and a half months, and I'm still not happy with the result. But it made me understand why this story could only be written in English. It is not only the genre. There are two elements that hinder its rendering in French.

First, at the core of the book is the idea that matriarchy would fare better than our current patriarchal societies. And as you may or may not know, words in French are either masculine or feminine. In English, I only had to tamper with things like mankind/humankind. In French, every word is a problem. Because not only is my language "sexed", it is clearly dominated by the masculine. And my idea could not be stated easily with the prerequisites of a man's language. That is also why I think the translation is not up to the original. Which does not matter really, because the publisher who commissioned it is no longer in business...

Second, I wanted to challenge the clichés that you find in science-fiction, where the USA saves the world every time, or civilizations that are clearly modelled on that of the USA. I am a huge Star Wars fan, for instance, but I couldn't help notice how similar the government of those movies was to America's. Many of the values that are at the core of American identity are unconsciously conveyed in science-fiction. And since I am challenging this state of things, the only language that can do is English.

I also found it fun to write in English ; I really enjoy it because writing, to some extent, is playing with words and upsetting the language. I teach English as it should be spoken in real life. It is much more exhilarating to write it as I want it to be... I know "my" English must be exotic in some way; it is neither rooted in American nor in French. It adds credibility to the world that I created.