On April 11, the Joigny and Hanover/Norwich students had a fun visit to Hanover’s Howe Library, where chaperone Françoise Depardon presented three lovely books as gifts from the Cercle Franco-Americain de Joigny to the people of Hanover. Une Anglaise à Joigny is written by Joigny author and local history expert Jean-Luc Dauphin. His story recounts the 1802 visit of real-life English novelist Fanny Burney as she came to meet the family of her husband, a Joigny native and army general. The book is lively, and full of local history – including old-fashioned French recipes!
Our visitors also brought two books by renowned French author Colette, who grew up not far from Joigny. Dialogues de bêtes is a charming, theatrical conversation between a dog and a cat whose observations about daily life and the human condition are richly portrayed in a short, readable work. Another gift was Colette’s novel Le blé en herbe, a romance story later produced in 1952 as the English film “The Game of Love.” The Colette Museum (Musée Colette) is a delightful day trip, less than an hour from Joigny.
The Hanover-Joigny Exchange Committee looks forward to presenting books by our local authors to the Joigny Library this summer in what we hope will become a biannual tradition!
We thank our counterparts in Joigny, and Fabien Dufour in particular, for this wonderful idea.
