Colombe Schneck: Lügen im Paradies

Author Colombe Schneck is a literary star in France, known in part for her Paris Trilogy—a woman’s life told across three novels. In her latest book,*Lies in Paradise* (Rowohlt; French edition: *Mensonges au paradis*, Grasset), Schneck embarks on an autobiographical journey back in time to a childhood where a Swiss mountain idyll collides with “black pedagogy.” Colombe spent every summer of her childhood in the Swiss mountains. Together with other young people from all over the world, she was placed in the care of a married couple who looked after the group of children with both love and strictness: all from good families, all from broken homes—just like Colombe.

It takes Colombe thirty years to revise her image of this idyllic childhood. She travels to Switzerland, reunites with the people from back then, and above all with the two children of the couple who so selflessly cared for all those foreign charges, yet criminally neglected their own. Withherautofictional novel, French author Colombe Schneck has created a moving and unsettling study of fragile family relationships and the deceptive power of memory.

Moderator and translator: Gregor Praml. German voice: Anna Staab.

In cooperation with the Institutfrançais Frankfurt/IFRA-SHS and the French and Swiss Consulates General in Frankfurt.