Deadly Slugs Invade France

In November, 2010, the new Eclipse imprint of Bibliotheque Interdite released Orphanage’s French-language edition, Les Orphelins.  Take a look at Eclipse’s stylish youtube trailer for Eclipse’s November lineup (it was supposed to be their October lineup, but France was on strike-seriously) including Les Orphelins, here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9YjPjEhqXA

Eclipse also asked me to create a “Chinese Portrait,” a brief interview format popular with French readers.  In English, it read like this:

Robert Buettner’s Chinese Portrait

 

If you were a quality?  Perseverance (what I call it) 

If you were a flaw?  Stubbornness (what my wife calls it)  

If you were a work of art?  Something that hangs in the Louvre. It’s the only way I could ever afford a place in Paris. 

 

If you were a sound?  One hand clapping (without my wife); a symphony (with her)  

 

If you were a song/music?  Something too complex to be reduced to a ring tone.

 

If you were a word?  A short, meaningful one.

If you were a time period?  The late Cretaceous. Like life, lots of roaring and screaming, followed by a loud bang and chilly silence.

If you were a personage of fiction?  Yoda. What could be better than eight hundred years of life without a single text message?

If you were an animal?  Something that hibernates.

If you were a celestial object or body?  Mousetrap, a hollowed out moonlet that exists in my books. It serves as an interstellar crossroad. Why Mousetrap? Because I’ve met so many interesting people there.

If you were a motto/a quotation?  “Expect the worst from the gods of war, and they will seldom disappoint you.” – General Jason Wander, narrator of the Orphanage series

If you were a movie?  Le Course en Tete, the documentary about the cyclist Eddy Merckx.

If you were a book?  I already am. A novelist whose essence isn’t in the novel has failed.

You can see my Chinese Portrait here, as it appears in French on the Eclipse site/’blog, which you should check anyway, because it is wicked slick.  However, I’m pretty sure my patois American lost quite a bit in translation:  http://editionseclipse.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/portrait-chinois-n%c2%b04-robert-buettner/

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