Brownfield Night

Genre(s):

• Short story
• Noir fiction

Keywords:

• Social diversity and mixing
• Lynching
• Conversion of industrial wastelands

Audience: suitable for all audiences; fans of politically-engaged fiction such as Brown Morning or La Nuit du second tour [Second Round Election Night].

Rights sold abroad: /

Concept

After a life on the move, he returns to the small city of his youth, but his mere presence makes the past rear its ugly head.

Universe and references

• In the same vein as Brown Morning (25 translations) by the same author
• Ken Loach films
• The rise of nationalism in Europe

Pitch

An industrial wasteland along a canal somewhere in France with gutted walls looming like gigantic memories.

All around it: homes and retirees. Inside: squatters and lost souls.
When a man arrives one day and wakes up sleeping demons, their world is plunged into violence, blood, and tragedy.

Author

A seasoned traveler, Franck Pavloff published his first “Noir series” novel in 1993. Twenty-five more would follow including youth fiction novels. His short story Brown Morning, which was published in 1999, was a worldwide success with nearly 2 million copies sold in France and 25 translations.

At a glance

• Short story
• Word count: 56,000 characters including spaces
• Available material in English: this presentation (including an overview of the work’s characteristics) and a translated excerpt