La Ronde et autres faits divers

La Ronde et autres faits divers is the title of a set of short stories written in French by French Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio and translated into English as The Round & Other Cold Hard Facts.

Geographical Background

The reviewer of this book from the New York Times finds the protagonists^[1] of the 11 stories in The Round & Other Cold Hard Facts to be underprivileged although they are residents of a very privileged area: the French Riviera.^[2]

Critique

Uneven

The reviewer of this book from Barnes & Noble wrote that even though none of the eleven short-stories are out of the ordinary, the author does however find strange goings on.^[3]This reviewer surmises that this collection of stories is uneven and the style of writing can make for monotonous reading.

It is quite often painfully hard to read

According to John Pilling ^[4] there is insistent use of the present tense used throughout the book that produced in the mind of this reviewer "a kind of literary indigestion". He went on to mention that a person could "fear the snare of thinking that this sort of literary indigestion is therefore good for the person reading!^[5]

There is suffering in every story

1. sometimes just because the protagonist is lonely
2. maybe has been robbed (injured or raped)
3. some vagabonds try to smuggle across the Italian border
4. two girls run away from home
5. how a child becomes a thief
6. a woman gives birth alone on the carpet of her mobile home
7. a girl is crushed to death by a truck
8. another girl is raped in a communal basement^[3]

Table of contents

Publication history

First French Edition

• Le Clézio, J. M. G. (1982-04-14). La Ronde Et Autres Faits Divers (Le Chemin) (in French). Paris: Gallimard Collections "Le Chemin" "Le Promeneur"+"Folio". p. 281. ISBN 978-2-07-021395-5. 

Also published as La Ronde Et Autres Faits Divers: [Nouvelles] (Le Chemin)

Second French Edition

• Le Clézio, J. M. G. (1991). La Ronde Et Autres Faits Divers (Collectin Folio) (Mass Market Paperback) (in French). Paris: Editions Flammarion. p. 281. ISBN 978-2-07-038237-8. 

Also published by Gallimard Education as Ronde Et Autres Faits Divers (La) (Collectin Folio) in a Mass Market Paperback format

Third French Edition

• Le Clézio, J. M. G. (1990-01-01). La Ronde et Autres Faits Divers (in French). Paris: Folio Schoenhof's Foreign Books, Incorporated. p. 281. ISBN 978-2-07-038237-8. 

Also published as Ronde Et Autres Faits Divers (La) (Collectin Folio) by Gallimard Education

Fourth French Edition

• Le Clézio, J. M. G. (1990-10-01). La Ronde et Autres Faits Divers (Nobel Prize Literature 2008) (in French). Paris: French & European Pubns. p. 281. ISBN 978-0-8288-3708-8. 

First English translation

• Le Clézio, J. M. G.; Translated by C. Dickson. The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts. Lincoln, Nebraska,USA: University of Nebraska Press. p. 281. ISBN 978-0-8032-2946-4. 

Audio Edition in French

There is a spoken version of "La ronde et autres faits divers"CD & MP3 as read in French by Bernard Giraudeau.^[6]

Second English Edition

• Le Clézio, J. M. G.; Translated by C. Dickson (2002-09-01). The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts. Lincoln, Nebraska,USA: Bison Books. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-8032-8007-6. 

References