Franzen guest of honour at Fnac's first festival

The leading French cultural product chain Fnac will hold its first book festival on 2nd-4th September at the Carreaux du Temple in central Paris.

Guest of honour will be Jonathan Franzen, who will present this year’s Fnac literary prize at the inaugural evening on 1st September. More than 100 authors with new books released during the Rentrée period after the summer break will participate, signing their work and taking part in debates.

Fnac will run a bookshop at the fair, which will be free entry, and other events will be announced when the full programme is published on 25th August at www.forumfnaclivres.com.

The number of novels to be published at this Rentrée between August and mid-October will fall again from 589 last year to 560, according to the trade publication Livres Hebdo. The decline involves only French titles, which will include 66 first novels, and gives a total way down from the record 727 published in 2007.

The five "unmissable" foreign authors with new titles on the French market will include three Americans—Jim Harrison, David Vann and Donald Ray Pollock—as well as Amos Oz and Salman Rushdie with Deux Ans, Huit Mois et Vingt-Huit Nuits (Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights).