Sunny Spells - Hardcover

Sempé, Jean-Jacques

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0714845442 ISBN 13: 9780714845449

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 2006

Synopsis

Jean-Jacques Sempe's witty drawings and keen eye for the finer points of the human condition have delighted readers in France and beyond for over forty years. Now, his sharply observed and beautifully drawn cartoons are available in English for the first time.
In 'Sunny Spells', originally published in France in 1999, Sempe explores a wide range of topics, from troubled relationships and office politics to doping scandals in the literary world. His cast of characters includes pious churchgoers, amateur painters and lovelorn palaeontologists, as well as psychiatrists, actors and football fans. Many of Sempe's intricate and evocative illustrations are accompanied by laconic, perfectly judged captions, which were translated by Anthea Bell, who also helped to bring Asterix the Gaul to the English-speaking world.

About this title

About the Author

Jean-Jacques Sempé (b. 1932) is one of the most successful cartoonists and illustrators in the world, and still regularly contributes to magazines such as THE NEW YORKER and PARIS MATCH. Born in Bordeaux, Sempé was expelled from school for bad behavior. He enjoyed a variety of jobs, from traveling toothpaste salesman to summer camp worker, before winning an art prize in 1952. Although Sempé was never formally trained as an artist, more than twenty volumes of his drawings have been published, in thirty countries. Sempé also enjoys iconic status with generations of children (and adults) around the world, thanks to his collaboration with writer Rene Goscinny on a classic series of books about a little schoolboy called Nicholas. Phaidon Press published NICHOLAS (Hardback, 2005) to great acclaim last year. Sempé currently resides in France.

Anthea Bell (who with Derek Hockridge, also translated the entire ASTERIX THE GAUL saga comics) translated NICHOLAS into English from the original French. The recipient of a number of translation prizes and awards, among the first Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation for Christine Nöstlinger's A DOG'S LIFE (Andersen Press). Bell was selected as the recipient of the 2002 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for her exceptional translation of W.G. Sebald's novel AUSTERLITZ, published Random House. She recently translated the popular books, DRAGON RIDER (2004) and INKHEART (2003), both from Scholastic. Bell currently resides in England.

Review

"Sempe goes about showing us up with great good nature. ... his drawing is consistently delightful."-Anthea Bell, Sunday Telegraph "Drawings [that] are eloquent in every language."-Quentin Blake, The Week "[Sempe] is, par excellence, the master of the panoramic cartoon... Captions [...] have been brilliantly translated by Anthea Bell... There are many talented French cartoonists. [...] [Sempe] is the most universal... Sempe cartoons are a kind of illustrative haiku. In such small space he conveys a great amount of meaning... An infinite delight in the complexity and ambivalence - and the humour - of the everyday and the ordinary."-The Independent "[Sempe] started life as a journeyman cartoonist, drawing single gags. From there he has gradually broadened out and blossomed, acquiring colour and boldness and breadth, until it is hard to call him anything but an artist... You can't really lose with Sempe."-The Spectator

Edition details

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0714845442
• ISBN 13: 9780714845449
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 104