Events
- This event has passed.
Global France Seminar and the French Library present: Julia Malye, Writing Across Histories and Languages [AUTHOR TALK SERIES]
May 1 @ 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Join us for an evening with Julia Malye, author, translator, and rising literary voice, as she discusses her latest novel, Pelican Girls—a sweeping historical epic that brings to light a little-known chapter of French and American history.
A work of sweeping historical fiction, the novel follows the perilous journey of young women sent from Paris to Louisiana in 1721, bound for arranged marriages in a colony desperate for settlers.
But Pelican Girls is more than just a historical epic—it’s a deeply human story of survival, resilience, and sisterhood, set against the backdrop of colonial expansion, Indigenous resistance, and the brutal realities of the 18th-century Americas. Written simultaneously in French and English, Pelican Girls is also a fascinating exploration of language, identity, and the act of storytelling itself.
During this conversation, Malye will discuss the research and creative process behind the novel, her experience writing in two languages, and how translation shapes literature. She will be joined by Shuchi Saraswat, writer, editor, and senior editor at AGNI, for a lively discussion about historical fiction, cross-cultural storytelling, and the art of bringing lost voices back to life.
Our author talk will be followed by a Q&A session, with a book signing and a glass of wine. The event will be held in English.
About the Pelican Girls:
Inspired by true events, Pelican Girls tells the gripping story of three women sent from Paris to Louisiana in 1721 to marry settlers in the struggling French colony. Plucked from orphanages, prisons, and asylums, Charlotte, Pétronille, and Geneviève embark on a perilous Atlantic crossing aboard La Baleine, facing hunger, storms, and violence. Once in Louisiana, they must navigate an unfamiliar world where survival depends on resilience, alliances, and defying the limits imposed upon them. A powerful novel of friendship, endurance, and the untold role of women in history, Pelican Girls brings to life a forgotten chapter of the French-American past. Now being translated into over twenty-five languages, the novel is also slated for a television adaptation.
About the Speakers:
Julia Malye was born in Paris in 1994 and published her first novel, La Fiancée de Tocqueville, at just 15 years old. She studied social sciences and modern literature at Sciences Po and the Sorbonne before earning an MFA in creative writing from Oregon State University. In addition to her work as a literary translator for Les Belles Lettres—where she has translated works by John Steinbeck, Evelyn Waugh, and David Galula—she has been teaching fiction writing at Sciences Po Paris since 2018.
Her latest novel, La Louisiane (published in English as Pelican Girls), was written simultaneously in French and English, reflecting the linguistic and cultural intersections at the heart of its story.
The book is currently being translated into over twenty languages and is slated for a television adaptation.
Shuchi Saraswat is a writer, editor, and literary curator based in Boston. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Orion, Michigan Quarterly Review, AGNI, Ecotone, and elsewhere, earning special mentions in The Best American Essays and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. In 2024, her novel-in-progress received a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation and was shortlisted for the Granum Foundation Prize.
A passionate advocate for international and cross-cultural storytelling, she spent a decade as a bookseller in Massachusetts, during which she founded the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith.
Literature Section
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue 14N-407
Cambridge, MA 02139
tel: (617) 253-3581
