Your Memoir, the Way You Want It

Café Chez Madame: (Re-)Connecting to a Linguistic Heritage

I recently reconnected with my childhood French teacher. The school where she taught my classmates and me is in another part of the state, but when I ran into her a few months ago at a church I was visiting with a friend, we learned that we now live just across town from each other. Quelle bonne surprise! Though she insisted that I call her by her first name, she will forever be Madame to me. I was delighted to accept her invitation for un café at her house, a welcomed chance to spend time with her and to practice my French.

French was my paternal grandmother’s first language, and my father spoke a mix of French and English while growing up in a Vermont town bordering Québec. My mother’s family also has French-Canadian roots on her mother’s side. I studied French in grades 1–9 before switching to learn Spanish. Motivated by my dad’s genealogy research, I decided to independently resume my French studies a few years ago. While the sentence “Je peux comprendre plus que je peux parler” (I can understand more than I can speak) is something I routinely say when first meeting a French speaker, I am making progress. Madame was very patient and encouraging as we sat and chatted in her kitchen a few weeks ago, and I walked away with an armful of French children’s books and a new boost to my confiance.

I know the answer to my French-fluency dream is immersion, but my current life won’t permit me to live in la belle France, Québec, or some other francophone place for an extended period of time. And so, I will continue to watch French movies and TV, study daily on Duolingo to extend my 700+-day streak, read my growing library of French children’s books with my sons, and hopefully share more café chez Madame.

My own experience with French made me very grateful to read Publishing Intern Olivia Go’s beautiful blog post linked below. In it, she describes her efforts to learn Korean, the language she heard her grandmother and mother speaking together when she was growing up in California. I wasn’t alone in being moved by Olivia’s writing, and so we decided to use it as inspiration for several other parts of this newsletter. Read on to discover more, and if you find yourself inspired to write about your own linguistic heritage, we would love to hear from you.

Cordialement,

Megan St. Marie

President

Two Recommended

Language-Learning Platforms

By Publishing Intern Olivia Go

Duolingo is a free mobile app and website that teaches over 40 languages. Short daily lessons in your chosen language and AI technology tailor the difficulty and pace of the lessons to your level. Though mostly used by beginner to intermediate learners, Duolingo can be helpful to anyone hoping to maintain or practice their language skills. A blog and podcast series can help people learn more about various languages and their cultural contexts. Click on the link below to get started!

Learn More About Duolingo

Babbel is an online language-learning service that charges a monthly fee. It offers 10-minute app- and web-based lessons for all ability levels in 14 languages and also provides access to podcasts and videos. With audio recordings from native speakers to teach lessons, learners are exposed to a more accurate, and often colloquial, way of speaking. Depending on which subscription you choose, Babbel can also arrange virtual meetings with language teachers.

Learn More About Babbel

In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri, Vintage Books, 2017.

Find this book and other recommended reading on the Modern Memoirs Boookshop.org affiliate page.

A Model Memoir: In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri

My youngest daughter is a senior in high school this year, and she is currently taking a contemporary literature class. One of the novels assigned in the course is a favorite of mine, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. As we discussed the book over dinner one night, I told her about Lahiri’s brilliant, innovative memoir, In Other Words, which I read when it was first published in 2017.

Focused on what some readers have called Lahiri’s love affair with the Italian language, it documents her determined efforts to learn Italian as an adult when she uprooted her family to live in Rome in pursuit of that dream. Not only does this memoir provide a beautiful reflection on language, learning, and culture, it also is a breathtaking feat of thoughtful bookmaking. Lahiri wrote her text in Italian, stretching herself as a writer and thinker, and her text is presented on facing pages with an English translation by Ann Goldstein. (For an excellent reflection on book-cover design, see also Lahiri’s The Clothing of Books.) The result is an exquisite, memorable book, especially inspiring for anyone who wants to learn a new language long after leaving school.

—Megan St. Marie

Featured Blog Posts by Our Staff

Facing the Sun: Learning the Language of My Childhood

By Publishing Intern Olivia Go

“For years, I turned my back on my Korean heritage. It felt like a beating, bright light I couldn’t bear to look at. That whole time, I couldn’t see it was the sun—essential to my very being. Finally able to see the beauty in its brilliance, I’m reaching for it again, facing back toward light, and hoping it will rise to meet me...”

Read the Full Post

Brushstrokes in the Portrait of You:

5 Ways to Approach Your Memoir

By Publishing Associate Emma Solis

“Writing a memoir, like creating any work of art, requires thousands of choices along the way. They may not feel like monumental choices—using a nickname instead of a formal name, say, or whether to include that little story from college—but each one is, in fact, a brushstroke in the portrait of you...”

Read the Full Post

Cover of Detours and Adaptations (title in Chinese and English) by Rusky and Rose Sun, publ. 2001

Language Arts

By Director of Publishing Ali de Groot

Over our 30 years of experience, Modern Memoirs has handled books in a variety of languages, although English is the primary one. Some family histories and memoirs have included translated documents of Russian, Yiddish, German, French, Spanish, and other languages. Authors often include an ancestor’s passport, license, or a ship’s manifest showing a journey across the ocean.

We are currently working on an English translation of two books written in Chinese some decades ago. The author, who is originally from China, wanted his memoir to be read by his wife, who is from the Philippines and doesn’t speak Chinese. It is an honor to help make these stories more accessible to families in this way. Simultaneously one can learn a thing or two regarding cultural linguistics. A little example: The author describes a person as being “evergreen,” not just to sound poetic, but it seems this is an English translation of the Chinese adjective. Languages are endlessly fascinating!

Here are a few examples of original-language items from previous clients’ books:

Hebrew handwriting in a personal correspondence, 1930s

Spanish signature, Teresa de Lucena, 1600s

Mexican certificate of national guard registration, 1848

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November Question: What language would you like to learn and why?

Write Your Response Here

Staff responses:

Megan St. Marie: Le français, bien sûr! (French, of course!)

Sean St. Marie: French, to feel closer to my heritage and so I could parler avec ma charmante épouse. (speak with my charming wife)

Ali de Groot: Arabic. So that I could talk with my Algerian cousins in their first language.

Liz Sonnenberg: Hebrew (at least the alphabet and some kinship-related words), to help me research my wife’s genealogy.

Nicole Miller: Chinese. My daughter’s second language.

Emma Solis: Spanish, partially so that I could understand Spanish books and movies without translations.

Olivia Go: 한구어 (Korean)

Memory Lane Stroll

We’d love to hear your brief personal reflections on the question of the month (at left). Write your response for a chance to be featured in the next edition of our e-newsletter!

Responses to our October question: Do you have a favorite quote about grief or loss?

“An unforgettable newsletter! I can offer only a recommendation: On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times, Michael Ignatieff, Metropolitan Books, 2021. In it, he awakens the voices of centuries past who say to and for us, your chosen words: ‘I’m here.’’’

—Adam Lutynski

“My fav, if there is such an actual feeling involved, is the poem ‘Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep’ by Mary Elizabeth Frye:

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow...

…and one closer to home is the poem ‘A Child Of Mine’ by Edgar Albert Guest:

I will lend you, for a little time,

A child of mine, He said.

For you to love the while he lives,

And mourn for when he’s dead...”

—Terry St. Marie