Jennifer Solheim

Location Oak Park, IL
Occupation French scholar, literary translator, fiction writer
Website http://

About Me

I finished my PhD in French in 2011, and as I was working on my dissertation I began working on a novel set in the contemporary immigrant neighborhoods of Paris. I am also working on a series of short stories that I call "cover stories": stories inspired by pop songs, whether in form, content, or lyrics. I am seeking a publisher for my translation of Yolaine Simha's Je vous ai vue dans la rue (1998) (I Saw You on the Street). An essay I wrote on the translation of Simha's prose poem novel was published on the fine website Fiction Writers Review:
http://fictionwritersreview.com/essays/the-seamless-skin-translation’s-halting-flow

I have lived several lives so far: I played bass and sang in indie rock bands in Chicago from my teens through my late twenties. I began working on a PhD in French in 2004 - starting in 1999, I spent the next ten years splitting time between the States and Paris. I'm now living in Oak Park, IL, with my husband, Brian, and our daughter, Audrey.

I'm currently on hiatus from Fictionaut while I'm at work on my novel. Tentatively entitled Five Stops on Line 2, there is an excerpt from an early chapter posted here.

Why do you write?

I have always written. Stories, journals, song lyrics, daily fragmentary bits. It orders my world.

Any favorite authors? Books?

in English:
Nicholson Baker, Djuna Barnes, Angela Carter, Raymond Carver, Roald Dahl, Annie Dillard, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Franzen, Siri Hustvedt, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, Anaïs Nin, Flannery O'Connor, Tom Waits' body of work from 1982 forward, Virginia Woolf

in French:
Evelyne Accad, Charles Baudelaire, Assia Djebar, Nancy Huston, Kateb Yacine, Patrick Modiano, Wajdi Mouawad, Marjane Satrapi, Leïla Sebbar, Yolaine Simha

in translation:
Roberto Bolaño, Milan Kundera

And many more, of course.

Jennifer Solheim's Wall

David Ackley – Jul 31, 2011

Somehow or another I missed your kind and very exact comment on my story, "La Vie economique a' Montreal" but very much liked just reading it and finding how well you traced the progress and terms of the piece. Thanks, indeed.

Roberta – Jun 29, 2011

Thank you for the comment on 'Love' - much appreciated. The couple of times I've tried the repeating the one phrase over and over in a piece it always seems (to me) to lend this slightly child-like quality to the writing that feels fun to work with.

Looking forward to catching up with your writing. I love lots of the authors in your list of favourites writers. (...Though I have to read Marjane Satrapi in English!)

Barry Friesen – Jun 25, 2011

I meant "comment" for "comic." Your use of "comic" obviously stuck with me! Ha!

Barry Friesen – Jun 25, 2011

Thanks for your generous comic on "Hat Trick," Jennifer. Bienvenue a Fictionaut!

stephen hastings-king – Jun 22, 2011

hello. welcome and thanks for the sweet comment on memory theater. interesting bio, curiously parallel to mine. i also have a ph.d. in french stuff (contemporary history; i wrote about socialisme ou barbarie). i haven't written much about paris or my paris adventures---but i joined yr group to see if it'd maybe rattle something loose.

Marcus Speh – Jun 21, 2011

fascinating bio, welcome here, jennifer. i love your new fnaut groups. paris, france. it doesn't get any better. well, perhaps only where i am (berlin). enjoy.

Robert Vaughan – Jun 19, 2011

Welcome to Fictionaut, Jennifer!

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