Inside the Writer's Studio: Jean-Philippe Toussaint's Mes Bureaux: Luoghi Dove Scrivo (Report‪)‬

JEAN-PHILIPPE Toussaint's Mes bureaux: Luoghi dove scrivo is a little-known book by a relatively well-known author. None of the scholarly literature acknowledges its existence, Toussaint's publisher the Editions de Minuit does not include it in Toussaint's bibliography, and the national libraries of France and Belgium do not own a copy of the text. (1) This lacuna is particularly significant given that Toussaint has been a prominent figure on the French literary scene since the publication of his first novel La salle de bain in 1985. The novel was a commercial and critical success, selling 80,000 copies during its first year of publication and provoking critics to speak of a nouveau "nouveau roman." (2) Since this auspicious debut, Toussaint's writing has continued to receive considerable critical attention. In 2005, Toussaint gained institutional recognition by winning the prix Medicis for the novel Fuir. Paradoxically, while Fuir was thrust into the limelight for having won Toussaint the prix Medicis, Toussaint's other book published in 2005--Mes bureaux--was ignored by nearly all critics. (3) While the text may have been overlooked due to its unusual form and content--Mes bureaux is an eclectic arrangement of prose, photographs, and drawings that take the reader inside many of the places where Toussaint has written--more likely the book owes its obscurity to its curious publication history. To begin with, Minuit, Toussaint's editor, did not publish it. In fact, Mes bureaux was not even published in France. Instead, it was printed and distributed by a small Venetian publisher--Amos Edizioni--for the very logical reason that the text is, oddly enough, in Italian. The Italian translation of an unpublished French manuscript, Mes bureaux is, indeed, an exceptional book. That Amos Edizioni printed only one thousand copies for distribution means that it is also a rare one. The text is also remarkable in that unlike Toussaint's other books which have been translated into thirty languages from Galician to Japanese (Toussaint, La bibliotheque 16), Mes bureaux has appeared in only one language. It is as if the book has been, quite literally, lost in translation.