Author on Tour: Colombe Schneck

About Colombe Schneck

Colombe Schneck is a documentary film director, 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.

About 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 depicting 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.

Swimming in Paris will be released in the United States in May 2024.

For more information, click here.

Schedule

Colombe Schneck will be on tour in the US in May 2024.

Her public tour will include:

• Tuesday, May 14: book launch & conversation with Sanaë Lemoine @ Albertine (New York, NY) – event in English;
• Saturday, May 18: conversation with Merrit Tierce @ The Wild Detectives (Dallas, TX) – event in English;
• Sunday, May 19: conversation with Merritt Tierce @ STOREFRONT (Corsicana, TX) – event in English;
• Monday, May 20: conversation with Szilvia Molnar @ First Light Books (Austin, TX) – event in English;
• Thursday, May 23: conversation with Katie Kitamura @ McNally Jackson Seaport (New York, NY) – event in English.

For more information, please email Valentine Richet at valentine.richet@villa-albertine.org.