050607 25
may june july 2025
Graphic
Nature
Practical book
Essays
Arts… 14
Cinema
Fine arts
Photography
Grafic novel...
Brecht Evens, Le Repaire de la Méduse 5
Brecht Evens
Le Repaire de la Méduse
[The Lair of the Medusa]
After Nicolas de Crécy in 2023, the Musée Thomas Henry is to showcase Brecht Evens for a journey through one of the most flamboyant graphic universes of our age. The exhibition will feature drawings, lithographs and original illustrations associated with his major works, not least the Le Roi Méduse trilogy. And Evens will also be creating a large-format work inspired by Cherbourg-en-Cotentin in front of a live audience.
This first solo exhibition dedicated to Brecht Evens in France has been curated in partnership with Amélie Payan and the Atelier Michael Woolworth. Actes Sud is the publisher of the official catalogue.
Brecht Evens first experimented with lithography in Michael Woolworth’s studio while he was working on Paris, a travel book published by Louis Vuitton, and he subsequently adopted the technique for much of his work. It was also in this same studio, which he calls the ‘Lair of the Medusa’, that he created the first images for his graphic novel Le Roi Méduse (published in January 2024): prints bursting with moving colours and textured chiaroscuro patterns that were later combined with the artist’s coloured drawings for the final work.
Brecht Evens is a Dutch-speaking Belgian graphic novel artist who was born in Hasselt in the province of Limburg in 1986. Since 2013, he has been living and working in Paris. His five graphic novels have been published by Actes Sud BD.
24 x 30 cm / 96 pages
Bilingual English catalogue June 2025
> The Musée Thomas Henry in Cherbourgen-Cotentin is hosting the Brecht Evens exhibition, Le Repaire de la Méduse, from 21 June to 16 November 2025 as part of the 12th Biennial of the 9th Art.
> The lithographs from the exhibition will also be on display at the Centre de la Gravure et de l’Image Imprimée in La Louvière, Belgium, from 13 June to 30 December 2025.
Nonfiction…
Nature. 8
Claude Siméon, Herbier des collines 8
Arnaud Béchet et al., Atlas et herbier de Camargue 9
> mondes sauvages.
François Sarano and Marine Calmet , Justice pour l’étoile de mer. 10
Simonetta Greggio and Olivier Weber, Un été en mer. 10
Anne Konitz-Hoyeau, Chevaux de course. Propriétaires. 11
> cahier militant.
Tanguy Descamps and Côme Girschig , Engagez-vous ! (Qu’ils disaient) 11
Practical book. 12
> rouergue.
Colette & Genet , Gâteaux frigo 12
Essays. 13
> compagnie des langues.
Julien Barret , Retour à la parole. 13
> errance & picard.
François Zosso and Christian Zingg , Les Empereurs romains. 27 av. J.-C.-476 apr. J.-C. 13
Claude Siméon is passionate about botany. He has spent fifty years researching how plants are used locally in Provence, talking not only to locals but also fellow researchers and historians. His goal has always been to secure recognition for the botanical heritage of this region where he has spent so much of his life and to spread the word. The illustrations in this book are based on the herbarium he has himself compiled over the course of thirty years and which has been described as ‘remarkable’ by the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle of Aix-en-Provence. 16 × 21 cm /
Claude Siméon
Herbier des collines et des chemins
[Herbarium of the Hillsides and Pathways]
‘On Sundays we used to go out into the countryside and we never came back empty-handed. Everything was centred around foraging: wild asparagus, blackberries, thyme, rosemary, fennel, sage… We wouldn’t have dreamed of just rambling for pleasure – there had to be a point to it.’
The 150 wild plants focused on in this book are still growing on hills, along paths and around houses today, but not many people think to pick them anymore, still less to use them. The aim of L’Herbier des Collines is to rescue these plants from the oblivion into which they have gradually fallen and rediscover the secrets and popular tales associated with them. With the help of photographs, illustrative plates and recipes, this ethnobotanical exploration is designed to revive our interest in getting out into nature to forage.
AIGREMOINE Agrimoina Agrimoino
Agrimonia eupatoria L. Rosacées. Plante pérenne, de 40 à 70 cm, dressée, velue hérissée. Les feuilles sont pennatiséquées à 5/9 segments ovales et dentés, alternés de segments plus petits. Les fleurs, jaunes, sont portées par des grappes allongées. Elle pousse dans les lieux incultes et au bord des chemins. Son nom agrimonia, fait référence au côté sauvage de son milieu de prédilection ; eupatoria rappelle Mithridate Eupator, roi du Pont, connu pour ses connaissances et expériences sur les plantes et les poisons. La plante contient des tanins, silice, vitamines (K et P) terpènes, et des pigments flavonoïdes. La pratique populaire tire profit de sa richesse en tanins qui en fait une plante de prédilection pour les affections rhinopharyngées et intestinales.
« Quand j’ai mal à la gorge, je la fais bouillir et je m’en fais un gargarisme » « Un fois que j’étais aphone, j’ai fait le gargarisme et j’ai retrouvé la voix » (M. B St Chamas. 1979.)
SALADES SAUVAGES
Agrimonia eupatoria L
Arnaud Béchet, Luc Douzon, Hugo Fontès and Anne Fourès
Atlas et herbier de Camargue
Cyanotypes des plantes rares menacées et protégées
[Atlas and Herbarium of the Camargue – Cyanotypes of Threatened Rare and Protected Plants]
The sunshine, the Rhône delta, the flora, a handful of passionate cyanotype photographers, a botanist, a writer and hours spent wandering through the dunes and marshes and along the riverbanks in every season. This collection of cyanotype plates is an extensive photographic and poetic exploration of the Camargue on the southern coast of France as well as a unique inventory of some of the most remarkable plants of the region, captured in bloom. Enriched with a logbook and diverse botanical information, it also examines the major challenges of conserving this very special ecosystem.
Arnaud Béchet is an ecologist and head of research at the Tour du Valat research centre.
Luc Douzon, a photographer and naturalist, is particularly involved in conservation efforts.
Hugo Fontès is a botanist and technical researcher at Tour du Valat.
Anne Fourès is a photographer who is in charge of cultural and publishing projects.
June 2025
24 × 32 cm / 312 pages
11,5 × 21,7 cm / 304 pages
May 2025
>
François Sarano and Marine Calmet
Justice pour l'étoile de mer
Vers la reconnaissance des droits de l'Océan [Justice for the Starfish – Recognising Rights in the Oceans]
As it stands, only commercial or protected fish species have rights in the ocean world. This doesn’t add up to much given the richness of the oceans and our heavy dependence on healthy, functioning marine ecosystems. François Sarano and Marine Calmet have teamed up to appeal for greater respect for every living species in our seas, from the biggest to the smallest, as a crucial step in rethinking the nature of our relationship with marine life.
François Sarano is one of the star authors of Actes Sud Nature. He is the founder of the ocean conservation organisation Longitude 181.
Marine Calmet is a young lawyer and environmental campaigner. She set up the annual ecological transition programme Wild Legal.
Simonetta Greggio and Olivier Weber
Un été en mer
Voyage en Pelagos, sanctuaire de la Méditerranée
[A Summer at Sea - A Journey to the Mediterranean Sanctuary of Pelagos]
Simonetta Greggio and Olivier Weber are two renowned writers who were invited by the Prince Albert II foundation in Monaco to spend the summer of 2024 in the Pelagos sanctuary in the Mediterranean, situated off the coasts of mainland France, Corsica, Monaco and Italy. They sailed, dived, explored and met fishermen, scientists, free-divers, ferry captains, whale observers and sea turtle conservationists. And in this book, they deploy their storytelling arts to convey their love for this little corner of the Mediterranean that is so rich in marine biodiversity and yet so threatened. An ideal gift for any holidaymaker intending to spend time on the Côte d’Azur next summer!
Simonetta Greggio is an Italian writer, scriptwriter and radio producer. She has published some fifteen novels and a number of short story collections with Stock, Flammarion and Albin Michel. Of late, she has been addressing ecological themes. She loves dogs and trees, and doesn’t eat animals.
Olivier Weber is a war reporter and travel writer. He has covered some twenty conflicts and spent time with around fifteen armed and guerilla movements. He has organised various expeditions to Siberia, the Himalayas, Cambodia and Amazon rainforest, and written several prize-winning books. His most recent publications are Dictionnaire amoureux de l’aventure (Plon) and Ma vie avec Gérard de Nerval (Gallimard).
Anne Konitz-Hoyeau Chevaux de Course. Propriétaires
[Racehorses. The Owners]
Following on from Éleveurs. Femmes et Hommes de Cheval, a 2019 book that took us inside the world of racehorse breeders and revealed the thought processes and techniques that go into breeding a future champion, Chevaux de Course. Propriétaires explores the second phase of the horse-racing odyssey. For the purposes of this book, Anne Konitz-Hoyeau spent time with a dozen owners of racing stables – safes of a very particular kind that instead of car collections house living and whinnying jewels: pampered thoroughbred super-athletes on whom great hopes rest.
The author, herself once an elite sportswoman, is an architect by trade and a keen amateur horserider. She discovered the world of horse-racing through her husband (a former amateur jockey) and went on to run France’s largest racehorse auction house for many years.
Fascinated by these accomplished animal athletes, she learnt how to read and decrypt the codes of this thrilling world. As the owner of several racehorses over the years who were stabled along with other horses in France and abroad, she has come into contact with a wide range of industry players. Actes Sud published her Éleveurs. Femmes et Hommes de Cheval in 2019. 11,5 × 21,7
Tanguy Descamps and Côme Girschig
Engagez-vous ! (Qu’ils disaient)
Le guide pour trouver sa place dans le monde de l’écologie]
[Sign Up! (they said) -A Guide to Finding Your Niche in the Ecology World]
The aim of this playful but incisive essay is to help people – particularly young adults – find their niche as committed participants in the ecological network. It adopts a sociological perspective to describe the different types of personalities who get involved, using short fictional scenarios to illustrate what engagement looks like in concrete terms.
These portraits are based on actual people and experiences to which readers can readily relate so that they can work out how they can contribute in their own way and finally find their niche…
Tanguy Descamps is a Sciences Po Bordeaux graduate who teaches and and coordinates ecological and social transition efforts at the University of Rennes. He is also the co-author with Maxime Ollivier of Vivre avec l’éco-lucidité (“Je passe à l’acte”, 2024) and Basculons ! (“Cahier militant”, 2022), both published by Actes Sud.
Côme Girschig, a graduate of the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and Sciences Po Paris, teaches and lectures on ecological issues and new conceptual perspectives. He also runs an ecology consultancy firm.
> Rouergue
Colette & Genet
Gâteaux frigo
[Fridge Deserts]
Photographs by Rebecca Genet
Even if you know nothing about making desserts, if you have a fridge, you can make fridge desserts consisting of alternating layers of whipped cream and biscuits. It could hardly be easier, and there are infinite variations on the theme. You can use speculass, shortbread, wafers or sponge fingers, and add fresh fruit, chocolate, lemon curd or spices if you like. You can cover them in powdered chocolate, matcha tea or marshmallows. As for the whipped cream, it can be flavoured with vanilla, orange blossom or coffee, depending on how the fancy takes you. And fridge desserts can be made with or without a mould, in one large piece or as individual servings. The only rule is that they need to go in the fridge, because that’s where the magic takes place... All the recipes come with illustrations that artfully evoke the origins of these deserts, which were invented in 1920s America when the refrigerator was starting to become a familiar appliance in people’s homes.
Artistic director Colette and photographer Rebecca Genet have become friends over the course of their collaborations on several cookery books. Lovers of desserts as well as images, they have pooled their respective skills to create Gâteaux frigo, a book of ultra-simple recipes.
Qu’est-ce qu’un gâteau frigo ?
Le gâteau frigo (qu’on peut aussi appeler Icebox Cake ou Dessert Frigidaire) est un gâteau frais, ultra facile à préparer, constitué de couches alternées de crème fouettée et de biscuits secs. Il se prépare la veille au soir pour le lendemain, ou le matin pour le soir et ne nécessite pas de cuisson.
Dérivé de desserts comme la charlotte et le tiramisu, mais conçu pour être plus facile à préparer, il a été imaginé aux États-Unis dans les années 1920, alors que les entreprises faisaient la promotion du réfrigérateur.
Sa préparation est un jeu d’enfant : on dispose les biscuits en couches que l’on recouvre de crème fouettée. La magie opère pendant le repos au frigo, où les biscuits absorbent progressivement l’humidité de la crème et se transforment en une texture fondante et onctueuse. Vous pouvez le placer 15 minutes au congélateur avant de servir pour le rendre plus ferme.
Le gâteau frigo peut se décliner et se garnir à l’infini. On l’agrémente de fruits frais, de chocolat, de lemon curd, de crème de marrons ou d’épices. On le recouvre de chocolat en poudre, de thé matcha ou de vermicelles de sucre. Quant à la crème fouettée, elle peut être parfumée à la vanille, à la fleur d’oranger, au gingembre ou au café, selon l’inspiration.
Le gâteau frigo se prépare avec ou sans moule, dans toutes les tailles, du petit format individuel au dessert des grandes tablées.
Une fois prêt, il se conserve 24 heures au frigo.
Julien Barret Retour à la parole
[Return to the Spoken Word]
What does the current return to the spoken word herald? This book investigates the return of the art of oratory to centre stage over the last decade or so in French-speaking countries and the forms that eloquence has assumed at school, at work and on social media. It also delves into the history and traditions of oratory to trace its origins and then examines the factors that have turned the liberation of the spoken word into a key driver of our social lives and our well-being, both individually and collectively. Speaking up involves asserting ourselves but also running risks. We all have the right to speak out, so let’s make use of it!
A poet, linguist and speech coach, Julien Barret is on a mission to champion the forgotten tradition of poetic art and revive its full potential. As well as giving talks in schools and at cultural events, he has published some dozen books on slam, rap and the French language.
10 × 19 cm / 176 pages
May 2025
> La Compagnie des langues
François Zosso and Christian Zingg
Les Empereurs romains
27 av. J.-C.-476 apr. J.-C.
Roman Emperors from 27 BCE to 476 AD
Everybody has heard of Augustus, Tiberius, Nero and Constantine. But what about Balbinus, Macrinus, Attalus and Olybrius? Just 105 men succeeded in donning the imperial crown, and over half died a violent death. This book presents the stories of their lives in the form of curricula vitae, which are enriched by extensive annexes to help history buffs, students, teachers and numismatists glean the essence of their individual personalities in the space of a few pages. François Zosso was a history teacher who devoted his life to historical research. Christian Zingg is a respected numismatist specialising in Roman history.
16 × 24 cm / 472 pages May 2025
> > New edition
Arts…
Cinema. 15
> actes sud | institut lumière
Gérard Camy, Sam Peckinpah. 15
Fine arts. 16
Jean-Pierre Formica , Panta Rhei 16
Jean-Michel Othoniel and Colin Lemoine, Cosmos ou les Fantômes de l’amour. 17
Photography. 18
Stephan Gladieu , On allait au bord de la mer 18
Collective work , Sarah Carp. Sans visage 18
> photo poche. 19
Letizia Battaglia 19
La photographie moderniste brésilienne 20 Louis Stettner 21
Gérard Camy
Sam Peckinpah
Le rebelle mélancolique
14,5 × 24 cm / 848 pages 30 photografs May 2025
> Coedition Institut Lumière
[The Melancholic Rebel] Arts.
Although some of his films are very well-known (La Horde sauvage, Les Chiens de paille, Le Guet-apens, Le Convoi ) and he became a major Hollywood player on the cusp of the 1970s, these days Sam Peckinpah is far from being the most popular of American directors. And yet this maverick, who died at 59 and never had an easy relationship with the studios, developed over the course of his fourteen films a distinctive ‘Peckinpah touch’ that has influenced, and is continuing to influence, many filmmakers, among them Alain Corneau, Kathryn Bigelow, John Woo, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. His works have become classics of American cinema and are still studied for what they say about the violence of the world and the complexity of the human soul. In this book, Gérard Camy serves up the first in-depth biography of this giant of cinema.
A cinema teacher and historian as well as a critic (Télérama, Jeune Cinéma), Gérard Camy wrote the first monograph in French on Sam Peckinpah back in 1997. With his son Julien, he has also published an anthology of sport and cinema, published by Amphore in 2021.
17 × 24 cm / 96 pages
June 2025
Jean-Pierre Formica Panta Rhei
Texts by Matthieu Bameule and Florence Taddei
Panta Rhei embodies the vision of the artist Jean-Pierre Formica, whose multi-disciplinary oeuvre – sculpture, ceramics and bronze – proposes a ‘contemporary archaeology’: a world perpetually being reborn that captures the past all the better to reinvent the future, drawing inspiration from myths, history and memory to construct an elliptical world. This book reflects on both his overall approach and the specifics of his forthcoming project at the Alyscamps Roman necropolis in the south of France in the summer of 2025. The artist transforms materials such as salt, bronze and earth to fashion forms imprinted with an almost palpable resonance, as if the centuries themselves had preserved within them the living memory of the people who lived through them.
Jean-Pierre Formica is a visual artist who divides his time between Arles and Paris. He draws his inspiration from Mediterranean culture, working through the filter of mythology to address the phenomena of memories, traces, imprints, accumulation and sedimentation. His work (re)invents a ‘contemporary archaeology’ through painting, drawing, washes, engravings, sculptures and ceramics.
© Amélie
Carles
Jean-Pierre Formica © ADAGP Paris, 2025 / photographie : Virgile Roger
Jean-Michel Othoniel and Colin Lemoine
Cosmos,
ou les Fantômes de l’amour
[Cosmos or The Ghosts of Love]
This book, conceived of by Jean-Michel Othoniel in collaboration with the writer Colin Lemoine, is presented as if it were his own working notebook. Following the order of the exhibition, it takes us on a stroll through the artist’s preparatory watercolours and sketches, overlaid by drawings created specially for the book. Accompanied by a map, it departs from a standard guide to become a poetic work in its own right, inviting readers and visitors to dream and marvel.
Colin Lemoine is an art historian and critic, publisher and writer. A contributor to the specialist press (including Art Press and Connaissance des Arts), he is well-versed in the work of Jean- Michel Othoniel, to whom he has devoted several articles. His books Giacometti devant Bourdelle De la conversion au reniement (Les Presses du réel, 2016) and Bernard Pagès. Le chant des possibles (Ceysson, 2020) both won Académie des Beaux-Arts prizes. He has also written two novels, Qui vive and Malgré. Published in 2019 and 2023 (Gallimard) respectively, they were critically well received.
17 × 23,5 cm / 112 pages June 2025
Othoniel © ADAGP Paris, 2025
Jean-Michel
24 × 30 cm / 272 pages
Stephan Gladieu On allait au bord de la mer
[We All Went to the Seaside]
Texts by Leïla Slimani and Christophe Granger
Between the summers of 2022 and 2023, Stephan Gladieu clocked up 11,000km and 55 French coastal resorts. The gallery of portraits that he produced for a major photography commission from the French culture ministry and the BNF national library focuses on the French on holiday at the seaside.
Alone, in couples, with their families or their friends, the people he met were asked to pose however they liked with the natural surroundings providing the backdrop. He imposed no staging or artifice – everyone chose their own pose. The resulting series is a life-size tableau of French society in all its diversity, singularity, pride and spontaneity.
The second instalment of the ‘Idéal Standard’ trilogy, this book follows on from Corée du Nord, published by Actes Sud in 2020.
As a historian and writer, Christophe Granger is interested in the transformations of bodies and social activities in both their political and private manifestations.
The socially engaged Franco-Moroccan Leïla Slimani is a subtle explorer of social contradictions, with a particular focus on sexuality and women’s freedom.
The self-taught Stephan Gladieu started out in 1989 as a photographer interested in documenting the conflicts and social issues that define so much of our world. These days, he focuses on more personal series that examine the relationship between identity and appearance and explore how the standardising of collective ideals fashions society and reveals the unique yet multiple nature of individual identity.
18 × 24 cm / 128 pages
June 2025
Sarah Carp
Sans visage
[Faceless]
Texts by François Ansermet, David Le Breton, Julie Enckell Julliard and Gaëlle Droz-Sauthier
Confined to her flat, Sarah Carp started taking photos of her children during the Covid-19 lockdowns. The girls’ father took issue with these photos and prevented their publication in the name of protecting his children. Sarah decided to restage the scenes with other children, but their expressions lacked the previous spontaneity. And so she applied coloured dots to the faces of these children actors, the artifice creating a masklike effect.
This book speaks subtly of the forbidden and hidden – of the subterfuge that can be necessary to get round censorship.
The work of Sarah Carp, who studied photography in Vevey in Switzerland, blends reportage and staged images. In 2021, she won the Swiss Press Photo Award for best photographer and also first prize in the ‘Everyday Life’ category.
Letizia Battaglia
Text by Walter Guadagnini
Letizia Battaglia (1935-2022) should have been gunned down by the Mafia countless times, having doggedly documented their killings and in particular those of the Corleone clan, which was responsible for the deaths of over a thousand people in Palermo in the early 1980s.
One of the few female photojournalists, she taught herself photography while working at L’Ora, a Palermo-based communist daily newspaper. In 1985, she won the W. Eugene Smith photojournalism prize, which marked the beginning of her international recognition.
Since 2016, Walter Guadagnini has been running CAMERA (Centro Italiano per la Fotografia) in Turin. In 2018, the became artistic director of the Fotografia Europea à Reggio Emilia festival. He has been a member of the academic board of the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia in Florence since 2021.
12,5 × 19 cm / 144 pages
Photo Poche no 182 June 2025
PHOTO POCHE
12,5 × 19 cm / 216 pages
Photo Poche no 183
June 2025
> PHOTO POCHE
Marcella Legrand Marer and Helouise Costa
La photographie moderniste
brésilienne
[Modernist Brazilian Photography]
Translated from Portuguese by Antoine Chareyre
Brazilian modernist photography emerged in the 1940s and 1950s in response to the age of modernity then sweeping across Brazil, which also produced bossa nova, Cinema Novo and the modern architecture exemplified by Oscar Niemeyer’s creations.
Featuring 120 works, the book is divided into three parts: photo-club photography, photojournalism and documentary photography. Works from the movement, which has never before been the subject of a book published in France, will also be exhibited at the Rencontres d’Arles 2025.
Helouise Costa, a specialist in the history of Brazilian photography and of exhibitions, is a curator, teacher and researcher at MAC/USP in São Paulo.
Marcella Legrand Marer is an exhibition curator and PhD student at the University of Zurich. An expert in the regional histories of photography, she works with specialist reviews, publishing houses and festivals.
The two women are co-curators of the exhibition on modernist Brazilian photography at the Rencontres d’Arles 2025.
Louis Stettner
Introduction by Virginie Chardin
Louis Stettner’s oeuvre (1922-2016) reflects his constant toing and froing between France and the United States, which at the same time forms a bridge between French humanist photography and American street photography Irreducible to a certain period or aesthetic movement, his images have conserved their mystery and in certain cases their oddness.
Virginie Chardin is an independent exhibition curator who specialises in photography and the visual image. She has curated among others the Sabine Weiss (Jeu de Paume, 2016) and Frank Horvat (Château de Tours, 2022) exhibitions. She has also written the introductions to several books in the ‘Photo Poche’ collection.
60-62, avenue de Saxe
75015 Paris
tél. : 01 55 42 63 00
Place Nina-Berberova
13200 Arles
tél. : 04 90 49 86 91
Droits étrangers
Isabelle Alliel
tél. : 04 90 49 56 69 / i.alliel@actes-sud.fr
Sandra Martel
tél. : 04 88 65 90 35 / s.martel@actes-sud.fr
