Odile Hellier in conversation with Paul Yamazaki

Odile Hellier in conversation with Paul Yamazaki

City Lights and Seven Stories Press celebrate the publication of

Village Voices: A Memoir of the Village Voice Bookshop, Paris, 1982-2012

by Odile Hellier

Published by Seven Stories Press

A celebration of the legacy of the Village Voice bookshop in Paris, founded by Odile Hellier in 1982—a hub of social life and a refuge for artists, writers, and anglophone literary life for over three decades until it closed in 2012.

This collective memoir brings to life a literary history of a heady time in Paris, capturing a myriad of voices for whom “literature was not just a pastime but the very stuff of life.”

Village Voices is a collective memoir that brings to life the authors, publishers, and friends who frequented one of the most famous English-Language bookstores in Paris—the Village Voice bookshop. Founded by Odile Hellier in 1982, Village Voice was a hub for artists, writers, and anglophone literary life for over three decades. Told through the voices of artists that were reckoning, preserving, challenging, and archiving the time and languages that they lived in, this carefully curated collection, organized thematically, encapsulates some of the most important reflections and debates of 20th century literary history. From Allen Ginsberg to Toni Morrison, Michael Ondaatje, Raymond Carver, and Amy Tan, Hellier preserves the decades-long vibrant readings and dialogues that took place in this tiny bookshop on the Rue Princesse.

Hellier mines decades of archival footage to present anecdotes and insight from the spontaneous and informal exchanges that occurred among generations of literary and cultural icons. These artists present a multidimensional landscape of Parisian literary history in dialogue with American and global literary conversation. The book is a life-long curatorial project, a conversation across time, and a historical archive, created by a bookseller seeking to preserve the history of her much-loved bookstore.

Odile Hellier was born in the South of France during World War II and raised in the two different regions of Lorraine, near the German border still haunted by past wars, and Brittany fronting the Atlantic Ocean. After advanced studies in Russian language and literature she taught in high school for two years, she decided to broaden her scope and work in world organizations. During the fall of 1968, Hellier enrolled in a professional school in Paris that trained translators and interpreters in international relations. Hellier is the founder and owner of the Village Voice Bookshop—a hub of Anglophone literary life and culture that operated in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris for over thirty years. Village Voices is Hellier’s archival project and personal memoir.

Paul Yamazaki has been the principal buyer at City Lights Booksellers for more than fifty years. A champion for national and global literature, writers, publishers, and independent bookstores, Yamazaki was the recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 2023 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. He has mentored generations of booksellers across America. His book "Reading The Room: A Bookseller's Tale" was recently published by Ode Books.

Praise for VILLAGE VOICES

“Village Voices is a completely unique and cherishable chronicle of a time and a place which—if you were lucky enough to be there—gracefully invited you into the wider world's literary imagination. Odile Hellier is incomparable.”

– Richard Ford

“Hellier creates a vivid, abundantly populated narrative of the bookstore’s history. . . A pleasant array of warm recollections for bibliophiles.”

– Kirkus Reviews

“This rich collection of interviews with and profiles of authors who gave readings at Hellier’s English-language bookshop, which she operated in Paris’s sixth arrondissement from 1981 to 2012, presents a stimulating portrait of the Parisian literary scene replete with transporting photographs and gentle gossip. The life of Hellier’s store dovetailed with the “Third Wave” of American expats in Paris, which brought countercultural figures including Kathy Acker, along with writers including David Sedaris and James Ellroy. Hellier fastidiously catalogs each author’s activities at the shop, compiling snippets of q&as she conducted from the ’80s through the early aughts, many of which portend contemporary conversations about identity (Sherman Alexie recalls being “amazed” after reading poems by Native authors for the first time) and political correctness, which Jay McInerney says he hates. An earnest and modest host (almost to a fault, as she hardly shares anything about her personal life), Hellier lets her generosity shine through, as when she expresses gratitude for being able to send Samuel Beckett an Oxford English Dictionary at his retirement home. While the sheer number of names and titles on offer can be dizzying, it’s all but impossible to finish this compendium without adding, excitedly, to one’s own reading list. For literature lovers, it’s a feast.”

– Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully written, this memoir of a bookseller and her Parisian bookshop, told through the literary events she hosted is a genuine treasure trove of Paris literary life between the 1980s and early-2000s. It reflects the politics and concerns of the period, and is also a compelling exploration of language, writing, and the role of the author from both an American and European perspective.”

– Sylvia Whitman, owner of Shakespeare & Company bookshop in Paris

“This memoir of the venerated Village Voice Bookshop in Paris is like a song, a lyric to literature in all of its myriad forms and to those who live by it and love it. A resounding and rich chorus, truly an opera… that resonates from the first page to the last.”

– Heather Hartley, author of Adult Swim and former Paris Editor at Tin House magazine

“If you love Paris, you'll love Village Voices, an intimate, fascinating glimpse of literary life in the City of Light.”

– Janet Skeslien Charles, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library

“In her superbly written hybrid book, Odile Hellier… offers a larger, complex understanding of stylistic inventing and social consciousness that a diverse group of major writers and translators contribute to Paris literary life… a crucial literary resource that is also thoroughly entertaining.”

– Jeffrey Greene, author of French Spirits and American Spirituals

Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation

Host or Publisher City Lights Booksellers & Publishers