Demystifying the French with Janet Hulstrand
Saturday, April 17 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
In English
Janet Hulstrand will join us via Zoom to tell the story of how a lifelong love of the French language inspired the journey that led from her home in Minnesota along a winding path that passed through Paris, New York City, and Washington DC, and led eventually to Essoyes, a beautiful little village in southern Champagne that was the beloved summer home of the Renoir family.
Janet Hulstrand will join us via Zoom to tell the story of how a lifelong love of the French language inspired the journey that led from her home in Minnesota along a winding path that passed through Paris, New York City, and Washington DC, and led eventually to Essoyes, a beautiful little village in southern Champagne that was the beloved summer home of the Renoir family.
She will also read from her recent book, Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and take questions from our audience. Aimed at first-time visitors to France as well as expatriates, Demystifying the French is designed to help readers avoid common mistakes, and get off on the right foot with the French. Five easy-to-follow essential tips “for even brief encounters” are followed by 10 chapters that go into a deeper explanation of French habits, manners, and ways of viewing the world. The tips are enlivened by anecdotes from the author’s own path along the learning curve that leads to true understanding and appreciation of French ways. Reflections contributed by David Downie, Adrian Leeds, Harriet Welty Rochefort, and other well-known commentators on Franco-American cultural differences provide additional perspective and depth.
Hulstrand writes frequently for Bonjour Paris, France Today, France Revisited, and her blog, Writing from the Heart Reading for the Road; and her work has been published in the Christian Science Monitor and Smithsonian. Since 1997 she has taught “Paris: A Literary Adventure” for the education abroad programs at Hunter and Queens Colleges of the City University of New York; she also teaches literature and culture classes at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington D.C., and has led book groups at the American Library in Paris. She is currently working on her next book, A Long Way from Iowa, a memoir.
This event will be on Zoom and is free for all Alliance Française members.