Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt will be introducing his collection of short stories, La vengeance du pardon (The Revenge of Forgiveness), at the 8th annual Morges Book Festival on 1 and 2 September.

From the Morges Book Festival:

Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Playwright, novelist, film director and a writer of short stories and non-fiction, whose work has been translated into 50 languages and performed in as many countries, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is one of the most widely read and performed authors in the world. Born in France in 1960, he decided at an early age that his life would be in the theatre, literature and writing. In 2001, the French Academy awarded him the Grand Prix du Théâtre for his literary output in its entirety. Other awards include: the Prix des Grands Espaces Littéraires for Ulysse from Bagdad (Ulysses from Baghdad) in 2009; the Prix Goncourt for his collection of short stories, Concerto à la mémoire d’un ange (Concerto to the Memory of an Angel) in 2010, and the Prix Agrippa-d’Aubigné for La femme au miroir (Three Women in a Mirror) in 2012.

La vengeance du pardon (The Revenge of Forgiveness)

Four tales, four “novellas”: Les soeurs Barbarin (The Barbarin Sisters), Mademoiselle Butterfly, Dessine-moin un avion (Draw Me a Plane), and La vengeance du pardon (The Revenge of Forgiveness).
Torn between war and peace, two sisters, identical twins but psychologically poles apart, spend their lives loving and hating one another. Circumstances separate them then bring them together again. Which will finally win the day: jealousy or tolerance, revenge or forgiveness?
Against a background of high finance in a remote chalet in the Alps, a careless playboy abuses a naïve young lover and steals her childhood from her. What humanistic lesson can possibly be deduced from this tragic melodrama?
A hard, uncommunicative man learns humanity from his grandchild, as he plunges into the world of Saint Exupéry’s Little Prince with her. In this way, he learns to live and love. Then, one day, he realises that he was probably the pilot who brought down Saint Exupéry’s plane.
No one understands the attitude of Marie Marinier, whose adored only daughter was murdered by a psychopath sentenced for the rape and murder of 15 young women. To the world’s incomprehension, she visits him in prison, tames him and tries to bring him out of his isolation. Why does she do it, if she hates him?