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9781999331818

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'The greatest writers are also the greatest readers. Virginia Woolf, Roland Barthes, Jeanette Winterson - they all read, as Woolf put it, 'to refresh and exercise [their] own creative powers.' They can't stop themselves from writing about reading. They have origin stories of how reading and writing became as necessary as breathing. Julia Kerninon's A Respectable Occupation joins the shelf of these biblioautobiographies; books on how writers crave books, how books beget books, how tricky it is to move from the position of the reader to that of the writer, and stand there feeling you've earned the right to call yourself, finally, a writer.' - Lauren Elkin 'Marvellously contagious' - Le Point 'Julia Kerninon has all the makings of an icon,' Nathalie Azoulai, Marianne 'She has already made her presence felt as one of France's most promising writers,'Jade Laurent, L'Express 'Julia Kerninon is a huge talent,' Jeanne de Menibus, ELLE (France)

'Marvellously contagious' - Le Point

'The greatest writers are also the greatest readers. Virginia Woolf, Roland Barthes, Jeanette Winterson - they all read, as Woolf put it, 'to refresh and exercise [their] own creative powers.' They can't stop themselves from writing about reading. They have origin stories of how reading and writing became as necessary as breathing. Julia Kerninon's A Respectable Occupation joins the shelf of these biblioautobiographies; books on how writers crave books, how books beget books, how tricky it is to move from the position of the reader to that of the writer, and stand there feeling you've earned the right to call yourself, finally, a writer.' - Lauren Elkin 'Marvellously contagious' - Le Point 'Julia Kerninon has all the makings of an icon,' Nathalie Azoulai, Marianne 'She has already made her presence felt as one of France's most promising writers,'Jade Laurent, L'Express 'Julia Kerninon is a huge talent,' Jeanne de Menibus, ELLE (France) 'Yet Kerninon's writing itself demonstrates what is learned through these daily habits; her prose is sharp and thoughtful, with pockets of rich insight scattered throughout breathless cascading sentences. You know you should pause, that there are thoughts here worth uncoiling, but the text also wants you to rush along with it, and who can argue with that. There are digressions - added narratives, memories, arguments - and throughout, a constant never-to-be-fulfilled hunger for books. If you have it, you will recognise it, and find in this book strategies for assuaging it.' - Jennifer Sarha

Author Information

Julia Kerninon was born in 1987 and holds a Ph.D in American Literature. She has been compared to French New Wave filmmaker Eric Rohmer for her sense of style and feeling for dialogue, and to Alain Resnais for the artful structure of her narratives. But, most of all, her work stands out for its contagious joy, drive, exuberance. Her first novel, Buvard, has won the Prix Francoise Sagan, among many other awards. Kerninon's second novel, Le dernier amour d'Attila Kiss, won the Prix de la Closerie des Lilas in 2016, and her latest novel, My Devotion, winner of the 2018 Feneon Literary Prize, is published by Europa Editions on 20 August 2020. She lives in Nantes.

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