Brad Spurgeon's Blog

PARIS – I decided to publish another instalment of my occasional pieces from the period in which I wrote all about the writers of the French crime novel. Adding to my interviews with Jean-Bernard Pouy and Maurice Dantec, I have now put up a feature interview article that I did with Marc Villard. Villard has written hundreds upon hundreds of short stories, as well as novels, poems and scenarios. He also had a double career as an art director at Givenchy, and for many years he was the rock critic at Le Monde! Now if that is not enough to draw your attention to looking at my story, “From the Bourse to the Banlieue: Marc Villard, a French Master of the Short Story, and then some,” then perhaps you might like to skip my story about him and click on the links I put in its introduction that will take you directly to his site and the short stories of his that I translated from French to English. That will give you the best idea of some of what he does. So check it out anyway! Today I also suddenly had the idea, by the way, that I might in future do a special page devoted to all of the writings I did about the French crime writing scene, rather than have to have you scrolling through the menu above about “blog stories rather than posts.” The centrepiece, of course, was always my roundup story from “The Armchair Detective,” that I put above under the simple heading, “France and the Crime Novel.” Anyway, check out Villard now!