Felix Fénéon was the author of more than 1,000 faits-divers (brief news stories, as those typically found in some French newspapers, that are sensational and lurid) that appeared over the course of 1906 in the Paris newspaper Le Matin. Fénéon’s news items are populated with opium addicts, prostitutes, drunks, those flattened by trains and carriages, inept and angry thieves, protestors, and simpletons.
When New York Review Books Classics published Luc Sante’s English translation of Fénéon’s dispatches as Novels in Three Lines, illustrator Joanna Neborsky was inspired to bring twenty-eight of them to life using a mixture of collage and drawing. The resulting illustrations, combined with Fénéon’s economic and electric prose, comprise Illustrated Three-Line Novels: Félix Fénéon. I really love how Joanna brings a touch of lighthearted whimsy to Fénéon’s depressing sound bytes with colorful characters who seem to be oblivious to the chaos surrounding them.
I know what I want for Christmas! 🙂
This is great! And it’s getting better and better in her website. Thanks’ for the inspiration!
Now I know that I want Christmas
This loos amazing! Wow. I love the idea of a three line novel.