The Melbourne Salon - Foreign Language Bookshops: the inside story (General Admission)

Location : Alliance Française Pop-Up (50 Lonsdale St, Melbourne CBD)

Foreign Language Bookshops: the inside story

 With: Jillian Symons, Managing Director Intext Book Company Pty Ltd/Language International Bookshop & Elaine Lewis, former owner and manager The Australian Bookshop in Paris

The Melbourne Salon invites you to a very special evening with two Australian bookshop owners (one current, one former) who have both done an enormous amount for promoting foreign language books and cultures in Australia and in France.
Jillian and Elaine will share their stories and insights into the world of bookshops, book sales, publishing, and all things books.
 

Jillian Symons trained in Librarianship method in her Diploma of Education, having majored in French and German at Macquarie University. After teaching languages and librarianship in NSW and E.S.L. in New Caledonia, she worked with Hachette Australasia in 1976 and took over the business, changing the name to Intext Book Company in 1983. She opened the retail shop, Language International, in 1995. Jillian was active in the initial teacher training for the roll-out of computers with software for autonomous language-learning in schools and universities and maintains an active interest in teaching and methodology in the Australian context. In 2001, she was awarded the “Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques” for services to French as a foreign language in Australia and New Zealand. In 2007 she was awarded a Diamond Jubilee Certificate of Merit by the MLTAV for “exceptional and outstanding contribution to languages teaching in Victoria”. As an active member of the Association international des libraires francophones, Jillian has been proud to be involved in the Catalogue AILF des Coups de Coeur Asie et Océanie and the selection of literature to present to Australian francophone and francophile readers in 2023.
 

Formerly a music educator and writer, Elaine Lewis created the Australia Bookshop on the Quai des Grands Augustins, Paris, in 1996, to promote Australian writers. Between 1996 and 2001 she organised more than seventy readings for visiting Australian authors, artists and musicians as well as presenting photographic exhibitions. She has translated for the Franco-anglais Poetry Festival as well as poetry from Guadeloupe, Haiti, Switzerland, Canada, La Réunion, Belgium and France—her translations have been published in La Traductière, Etchings (Ilura Press), Mascara, UN Anthology. Her book Left Bank Waltz: The Australian Bookshop in Paris was published by Random House Australia in 2006.Elaine is currently Co-editor and Book Review Editor of The French Australian Review, the journal of the Institute for the Study of French Australian Relations (ISFAR) and is a member of AALITRA (Australian Association for Literary Translation). She is an Editorial Board member and book reviewer at 'The Music Trust’ (musictrust.com.au). In 2017, Elaine received Les Palmes Académiques from the French government for her contribution to French language and culture.

The event will be hosted by Kerry Mullan, Convenor of Languages at RMIT University, President of ISFAR (Institute for the Study of French Australian Relations) and Convenor of The Melbourne Salon.   
Kindly note that some refreshments are included.

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