France Burghelle Rey
France Burghelle Rey, also a poet and literary critic, taught Classical Literature in Paris, where she lives. She is a member of the French PEN Club. She has written about fifteen collections of poetry, more than one hundred of which have appeared in journals, as well as numerous articles in Quinzaines, Poesibao, Revue Europe, etc. Her current work is characterized by the writing of fragments: La Maison loin de la mer (The House Far from the Sea) Fragments I, Douro editions, June 2021; Raisons secrètes (Secret Reasons) Fragments II; Saison nouvelle (New Season) Fragments III, Douro editions, 2024; Volumes IV and V, Unicité editions, 2025; Volumes VI and VII forthcoming in 2026. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_Burghelle_Rey
For Marina, a highly literary student, it's the start of her final year of high school. The presence of her best friend Zara helps her cope with the other men in her life: Claude, her father with his shady dealings; Lambert, her French teacher who recognizes her genius and with whom she shares a special bond; and Mauro, her boyfriend who lives in Italy. Will her life intersect with that of Eric, the corrupt businessman, hopelessly in love with a woman named Sonia? Plagued by bipolar disorder, she struggles with her emotions and must contend with a powerful, often whimsical, creativity. Publication date: December 1, 2025. Order Press release
France Burghelle Rey cultivates the practice of the fragment. "A book of memories," she says at the beginning of her Fragments II, which follows The House Far from the Sea – Fragments I published in this collection in 2021, but also reflections parallel to her reading. These are ideas that sometimes follow one another and develop across several fragments, evolving and branching out, like the branches, sub-branches, and sub-sub-branches of a tree. It is also an ongoing reflection on reading, always within the author, linked to her innermost being, which has faced several trials. "Thus, the pieces of the puzzle scattered by the storm of panic that had invaded me and the disorganization of the mind it had provoked were pieced back together." We glimpse the author's life, its pitfalls and its triumphs. A term must be invented. France Burghelle Rey proposes "autobiopoetry." But it is also an “autobiography” of the present day, the present moment of writing, showing the writer at work, beginning correspondence and striving to progress on the path to completion. So what term should we use? Should we stick with “fragments,” “fragments of life”? I would suggest “continued fragments,” and the life of writing, where we encounter Proust as well as much lesser-known names like Aharon Appelfeld and John Muir. A book, notebooks to be read, perhaps like a novel of life. Publication date: June 1, 2024. Order Press release
This poignant text, *The House Far from the Sea, Fragments I*, aims to be intimate, even confidential, in the discontinuity of memories, with the interesting choice of alternating prose and poems. Poetry-journal? Let's be more precise: a timeless reconstruction based on the formative experiences of childhood and youth. Writing asserts itself in this text as a form of self-repair, of healing intimate wounds: "At his place I am without a window, a prisoner of the air..." "we will remain twins" "Amputated from myself"... And this astonishment, like an inner tear: "Here, for the first time, I am writing a book from a woman's perspective..." A trauma barely alluded to, but which seems an essential biographical marker: "Beautiful cousin whom I loved so much / I called her my daughter"... Self-censorship? Extreme modesty? The kinship with the writer Colette is undeniable: attachment to the land, to the childhood home, to the first garden... like a land that acts as a matchmaker. Writing is "the place of repetition, of stuttering" for France Burghelle Rey, which means that "the poet is a daily gleaner" (from Fernando Pessoa to Agnès Varda!). Psychoanalytic work on oneself, or writing about oneself as a revealer of what is happening (Jacques Ancet), of what is repressed, etc., runs through France Burghelle Rey's work: an autobiopoetry, she writes. Publication date: June 1, 2021. Order now
