All Press Releases for March 22, 2012
French Media Spotlight American Writer's Quest to Overhaul French Grammar
French media giant "Le Nouvel Obs" and others fuel the literary crusade of a Paris-published US author who writes in French.
PARIS, FRANCE, March 22, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- "Erik Orsenna, dictator of grammar! Look, you're killing the French language!" the rapidly-becoming viral video went (OK, viral by French not American standards).
Then the number 2 magazine group of France called "Le Nouvel Obs" picked up the story as did many literary websites (see attachments on right-hand side of this text.)
Some of these press releases start with those very same angry words, the aggressive words pronounced by the author on the video against French grammar.
The problem is that the author on the video is in fact an American citizen, legally not French one bit, not even French Canadian. Which means that the above-mentioned typically French declaration of war on all things grammar had been launched by a US author !
Mickael Korvin's novels are published by prestigious parisian houses such as Les Belles Lettres, Actes Sud, Le Rocher, Jacqueline Chambon. And he has translated Iggy Pop into French, among many others. The bilingual American author thinks he's on mission: to help bring the French language back into the boxing ring. How? By simplifying the grammatical rules. Unrealistic? Maybe that's why he's called his 8th book "Diary of a Lost Cause"!
In order to get his message through, the novelist has made alliance with a notoriously hardcore Franco-Algerian rapper called Morsay, who's no limits videos get hundreds of thousands of hits.
So what caused the scandal is that video they posted together on youtube is the most violent that has struck the French literary community for years. Because it's also a video that very unpolitely challenges France's #1 grammatician Erik Orsenna - who also happens to be a member of the French Academy of Literature. In a country where distinguished writers are still seen as sacred cows and grammar as the last defense against the barbarians, this controversy is all the rage.
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to see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw250qIP0oc
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UPLOADED VIDEO
Algerian Rapper Morsay and American writer Korvin tell French Literary Academy member Orsenna that his grammatical dictatorship is killing the French language.
ATTACHMENTS
The story about Mickael Korvin's literary Quest.
A US author scandalizes the French literary establishment
Mickael Korvin's new book and video is stirring up a storm about whether or not the French language needs to be modernized.
Morsay and Korvin met at the Paris Flea Market where they have shops, which is nice, But this business of insulting distinguished writers or changing the grammar is not going down well with everybody.
More focused on the bad boy rappers on the video, this paper exonerates Mickael Korvin (pronounced Michael) by putting all the guilt on them. Mickael Korvin is almost a victim!