“With a strong talent for comedy, Fabienne Betting puts forth a variety of themes – life in a couple, the world of books, contemporary environmental issues – while we have fun with her likable, misguided protagonist’s run of bad luck.”
—Livres Hebdo

“What a pleasure to read a first novel that is as funny as it is zany.”
—Version fémina

“Run to discover this novel”
—Elle

Thomas thought he could translate from Mesmanian into French, but he was wrong…But that didn’t stop him from publishing a bestselling novel!

In this clever comedy, Thomas, a twenty-something slacker, finds work translating a novel from Mesmenian into French. Except he doesn’t really understand Mesmenian as well as he thought. He quickly dropped out of his university course once he realized that his beautiful Mesmenian professor wouldn’t give him the time of day.

Because Thomas has such difficulties with the translation, he writes what he thinks the novel might be, and manages to craft some very unusual sentences. When readers search for books on Mesmenia because of recent current events there, Thomas’s novel about this tiny country wedged between Estonia and Russia becomes a major bestseller even if it doesn’t always make sense. And for some unknown reason, he is credited as both the translator and the author.

So when the beautiful Mesmenian professor comes back into Thomas’s life just as he becomes so successful her intentions may not be genuine. But what Thomas is really worried about is whether the real author of “Rural Life in Mesmenia” will come forward.

Fabienne Betting, born in in 1962, works in 3D medical imaging. This is her first novel