Join us for a celebration of the life and works of Mireille Best (19432005), a working-class French lesbian author whose brilliant contributions to LGBTQ+ fiction are yet to be fully appreciated. Featuring a talk and readings by translator and queer ally Dr. Stephanie Schechner from Widener University, USA, and hosted by London's own Mzz Kimberley. Dr. Schechner will give a talk on the life of Mireille Best, as well as a reading from Best's , first published in 1988 and now available in English for the first time on Seagull's Pride List. The novel traces the reflections and struggles of Camille, a young lesbian woman coming of age in a working-class neighbourhood in 1950s France. Her mother holds the family together, with the support of a group of women who talk over coffee and cigarettes each day. Her father, a war veteran, is largely silent except when his inner rage erupts in violence. Her sister, Ariane, provides comic relief, while her brother, Abel, a construction worker, is a lost soul who suffers from seizures. Camille herself can usually be found curled up with a book, observing everything. But an intellectual and sexual relationship with her dentists wife opens a world of new possibilities to Camille. Where will this lead her? Suicide, murder, accidental deathall are possible in this unconventional narrative from Mireille Best. As a young adult, Camille is not always the most reliable narrator, but she is one who charms with her intelligence, her lack of pretention and her strong sense of connection to her roots. With her, we embark on a fundamental and universal quest to balance where we come from with who we need to become. , . . ---------------------------------------------------- - - FR ---------------------------------------------------- Seagull Books is an independent publishing house founded in Kolkata in 1982 and specialising in serious literary fiction, poetry and works in translation. ' celebrates the fantastic diversity of LGBTQ+ lives across countries, languages, centuries and identities, with the conviction that queer pride comes from its unabashed expression

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