Tiny TripFiction Talking Location with Clare Povey, author of the Bastien Bonlivre Adventures

10th July 2022

To celebrate the publication of her new Bastien Bonlivre Adventure, The Unexpected Tale of the Bad Brothers, Clare Povey has dropped by the Tiny TripFiction blog to tell us about the beautiful Parisian backdrop that’s inspired her writing. From enchanting gardens and stylish suburbs to notorious prisons and spooky catacombs, there’s a whole lot of adventure to be had in Paris!

Illustrated by Héloïse Mab

Paris is a city that demands to be visited. Ever since picking up Madeleine in my local library, I wanted to write a book about a group of children having adventures in Paris. Naturally, this led to my interest in learning the French language.

I believe that learning another language is a superpower. My parents bought me Usborne’s First Thousand Words in French when I was six years old and I read it cover to cover. I was a shy child, someone who didn’t say much and always preferred to sit in the corner with a book or five. But this book changed me. I practiced every word, desperately wanting to see if I could successfully communicate with a native speaker. I begged my parents to take me and my brother on holiday there, and after months of saving – and withstanding my constant questions of When? – my mum and dad announced that we were off to Paris for a weekend.

For a shy, anxious child like myself, speaking a language made me feel fearless. Over that weekend, I spoke French at every possible opportunity. I ordered ice-cream for the family, asked for directions, bought our tickets to visit Le Louvre. Any opportunity to try out this new language, I took. Admittedly, my pronunciation was off and I stumbled over how to reply, but that trip sparked a lifelong love of languages. I would soon learn how to pronounce the letter r and master the many, many exceptions to French language rules.

Paris is also a place where multilingualism and different experiences thrive. Take a trip through the city and its outskirts and you will hear different languages: Vietnamese, Kabyle, Shilha and other Amazigh languages, Darija, Wolof, Turkish and so many more.

Travel and language go hand in hand. To this day, I have learnt smatterings of Japanese, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Italian, and Polish. Anywhere I go on holiday, I make sure I learn a few phrases. Why bother? Everyone knows a bit of English! This sort of belief entirely misses the point. To speak the language of the country you’re visiting is the bare minimum you can do, in my opinion. It’s more than just a sign of respect. It’s a small effort that you can make and its rewards are endless. Language truly helps us to better understand the world and when I set out to write The Bastien Bonlivre Adventures, I wanted my books to show the human experience in all its different forms. The good, the bad, and the somewhere in between can all be found in a city as vast as Paris.

Of course, the city has an endless number of incredible settings – all perfect backdrops for adventure, might I add. New locations in The Unexpected Tale of the Bad Brothers include the Mazarin Library, La Santé Prison, the Forest of Fontainebleau, the Champ de Mars and the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt. Here are some facts about a few of the new locations!

– La Santé is a panoptical style prison, a place where those behind bars are constantly being watched. The prison has housed the most notorious French criminals, as well as experienced a number of attempted escapes. In 1927, Léon Daudet, a journalist, successfully escaped when his colleagues called the prison, pretending to be a government official, and ordered his release!

– The Forest of Fontainebleau is thirty seven miles southeast of Paris. Over the years, the forest has been as great source of inspiration for artists like Claude Monet and Théodore Rousseau.

– As much as I love the Luxembourg Gardens, Buttes Chaumont Park holds a special place in my heart. Take the métro to Belleville and you shall be rewarded by the Temple de la Sibylle standing at the cliff edge that looks down over the glimmering lake and the rest of the park.

– The wealthy suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt is home to the Odieux family mansion. Not many of Paris’s suburbs are mentioned in books set in the city, but this is a prestigious and well-to-do area. It is home to a number of beautiful Art Deco buildings, including famous architect Le Corbusier’s own home and studio.

If you’re interested in exploring Paris and its surrounds further, I’ve created a Google Maps list of locations in The Bastien Bonlivre Adventures.

My interest in languages has influenced the trajectory of my entire life. It all started with a library book and allowing myself to dream. If I find myself with writer’s block, or worry that I can’t write and I am, in fact, a total fraud, I simply channel my inner six-year old who read that First Thousand Words in French cover to cover. What would she say?

Clare, you learnt a whole other language. You can do this. Wrestle those words and finish the story.

And I always find myself listening to her.

Clare Povey

Clare Povey is an author and the editorial and communities manager of the Writers’ & Artists’ website. She fell in love with France as a child, inspired by the stories in her local Redbridge & Dagenham Library, and by discovering the vocabulary in Usborne’s First Thousand Words in French. The magic of speaking another language eventually led to her living and working in France, and writing her debut series, the Parisian-based The Unexpected Tale of Bastien Bonlivre. https://www.clarepovey.com/

Catch Clare on Twitter @clarefpovey

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