Join Céline Minard for a presentation of her novel Plasmas (forthcoming in English from Deep Vellum, translated by Annabel L. Kim) at Villa Albertine’s Night of Ideas, Los Angeles. She will be in conversation with Deep Vellum Publisher & CEO Will Evans.
Plasmas is a series of immersion. A series of hypotheses, of reading experiences and experiments. The multiple facets of a world that has shattered, that’s in the middle of making up new forms of life. We plunge into the earth, the ocean, into space and into myth as we do into the many natural environments that have been tampered with, themselves segmented, tormented, buzzing.
After a Master’s in philosophy and seven years working at a bookstore, Céline Minard decided to go into writing at the age of thirty-three. She has published twelve books over two decades, all of them varying in tone and form. She completed residencies at Villa Médicis (in 2007–08) and Villa Kujoyama (in 2011), and was awarded the Franz-Hessel Prize for So Long, Luise, the Prix du Livre Inter for Faillir être flingué, the Special Mention of the Wepler Prize for Bastard Battle, the Zadig and Voltaire Prize for Bacchantes, and the Grand Prix de l’imaginaire for Plasmas (forthcoming from Deep Vellum in October 2024). She is currently a Villa Albertine resident in Los Angeles where she works on the LA River.
Will Evans is a publisher, translator, and entrepreneur with a knack for finding undertold, outstanding stories and connecting them to audiences. In 2013, Evans founded Deep Vellum Publishing, a nonprofit indie book publisher dedicated to translating the world’s best novels into English for American audiences. Deep Vellum Books followed in early 2016 to serve as a cultural community center with literature at the heart of its programming.
Villa Albertine’s signature Night of Ideas will take place from February 23 – March 3 across 20 US cities. The event invites thought leaders, activists, performers, authors, and academics to engage the public in late-night discussions addressing major global issues. This year’s unifying theme, “Outside the Lines,” centers urban life and development, raising questions about the impact of climate change, new technologies, gentrification, and social activism, by way of diversity and inclusion, access to education and nature, the future of cultural institutions, and the shapes of artistic communities in built environments.
All Night of Ideas events are free and open to the public.
Night of Ideas 2024 is presented by Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation thanks to the leadership support of the Judy & Peter Blum Kovler Foundation, and with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. It is coordinated worldwide by the Institut Français.