Reverse-Gentrification of the Literary World

Akashic Books

||| |||

Catalog » Browse by Title: T » Toulouse Noir (France)

Toulouse Noir (France)

Edited by:

Toulouse joins Paris and Marseille as the Akashic Noir Series continues its sinister adventures through the landscape of France.

Now available for preorder. All preorders will ship on or before August 4, 2026.

Preorder on Bookshop
Preorder on Barnes & Noble
Preorder on Amazon

Forthcoming: 8/4/26

$18.95 $14.21

What people are saying…

“In his introduction, editor Lavielle notes how, in fiction, ‘the writing provides a way for the reader to physically feel the place.’ To help readers feel the southwestern city of Toulouse, he organizes the contents into four parts, each of which explores a central question about the relationship between the city and its inhabitants . . . The unified themes of the four parts combine to provide both a strong sense of place and a sense of the strong emotional currents running beneath Toulouse’s pink brick. A welcome addition to the Akashic family of noir.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Description

BRAND-NEW STORIES BY: Al Baylac, Maïté Bernard, Tanella Boni, Manu Causse, Gaspard Chauvelot, Pascal Dessaint, Francis Émourgeon, Sarah Grall, Adeline Grand-Clément, Nicolas Rouillé, Hafid Saïdi, and Benoît Séverac. Translated by David and Nicole Ball.

FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES-HENRI LAVIELLE:

“In crime novels and in many other types of fiction, I have often been struck by a troubled feeling, as if the stories could not exist outside of their specific locations; that the writing provides a way for the reader to physically feel a place. For me, selfishly, this was probably the main reason I agreed to edit this collection of short stories . . . There are a few other circumstances that might justify my place in this adventure. I’ve lived in Toulouse for more than thirty-five years. I went to the university here, I’ve walked around its streets at night, have gone to bars, nightclubs, and concert halls . . .

“If the stories in the Akashic Books Noir Series are rooted in cities—Toulouse in this case—even reduced to their specificity, they also speak to our common humanity. “Nothing human is foreign to me,” Alban Bensa said repeatedly. And that’s probably enough of a reason to read this collection, even if you never set foot here.”

Book Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Published: 8/4/26
  • IBSN: 9781636141978
  • e-IBSN: 9781636142968

Author

CHARLES-HENRI LAVIELLE has been a construction worker, a bad bassist in punk bands, a parachutist, a history teacher, rugby player and coach, union activist, sales representative in publishing, and cofounder of Éditions Anacharsis and L’histoire à venir festival in Toulouse. Lavielle has lived in Toulouse since his twenties, which gave him a few years to roam the city and its neighborhoods day and night, with some variations depending on his age and the seasons.

More info »