Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today we continue our series, An American Bookworm in Paris, recorded recently when, as a guest of the cultural services of the French Embassy, I was in Paris for the very first time.

My guests today are three French writers, Olivier Cadillot, Mark Chattelenko, and Gregor Guillaume.

Paris is in fact beginning to grow on me, particularly today because I've come to the place

where I most wanted to be.

P.O.L. Editions. I am in the offices here. I am told that what there is of new writing in Paris

is published by the people at P.O.L. And it is true. I have been reading books in translation that are available in

America, and the first writer I'm going to talk to is Olivier Cadillot. He is the author of a novel

called Colonel Zhu.

It is published in America by Green Integer, and it is a genuinely hilarious book.

Now, in this book, I see traces of Raymond Kenow, of Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. It seems to me to be a fantastic and apocalyptic parody.

What went into the making of Colonel Zhu?

Hi.

Hi.

I'm from POL,-L, P-O-L, Paul. Well, I made a book before this is also translated. The name is former future fugitive. And it's a second book of a sort of saga. Can we say that?

It's an ongoing saga.

It's a saga for laughing.

...