Presented by ANU's French Language and Culture Program

On Tuesday 12 May French writer and journalist Laurent-Frédéric Bollée will talk about his (2013) comic book novel Terra Australis (and more generally about his/French views of the Pacific). This talk will be in French and is designed for Advanced students of French, but others are very welcome.

Laurent-Frédéric Bollée was born in 1967 in Orléans (France), and began writing professionally before he turned 20, signing his first contract as a comic book writer. Since then he has published some 40 books, working with the largest French and Belgian publishing houses.

Comic books in French-speaking Europe are a major part of the publishing world, with more than 4,000 books each year, of them some 1500 are brand new. In France alone, more than 300 publishers released comic books in 2014, selling more than 35 million copies and generating a turnover in excess of 420 million euros (about 625,000,000 AUD).

LF Bollée's best-sellers have been the ApocalypseMania series (eight books, about 100,000 copies sold in total), L’ultime Chimère (seven books, about 70,000 sales) and the stand-alone XIII Mystery Billy Stockton (120,000 sales).

Terra Australis is a case apart: published as a 500-page graphic novel by Glénat, the third-largest European comic book publisher with 15% market share, it required more than five years of work and was distributed in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada and in Great Britain, following the acquisition of the translation rights by the British publisher Self Made Hero. 10,000 copies have been sold to this date, a performance all the more noteworthy given the price of the book, in French-speaking Europe, of 45 euros (about 66 AUD).

Terra Australis received unanimous critical acclaim. The authors were invited onto French TV and radio to talk about the book. It was selected as among the 15 best comic books of 2013 by the prestigious Association des Critiques de Bande Dessinée, and received the Amerigo-Vespucci prize at the Festival International de Géographie de St Dié des Vosges, the largest specialist event in Europe.

LF Bollée is a descendant of the famous engineers Amédée and Léon Bollée, pioneers of the modern automobile. After studying law, economics and journalism, he worked for public TV channel France 2 for a decade before specialising in sport. Passionate about motor racing, he is currently chief editor of Motors TV, a specialist European TV channel, and for the last 15 years has been the lead commentator of major Australian series such as the V8 Supercars, the V8 Utes, the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia and the Australian Drag Racing Series…

LF Bollée lives in Versailles, a few hundred metres away from the world-famous Château. He is married and the father of two children. 

Image: L-F Bollée (holding book) with co-author Philippe Nicloux