From The Editor's Desk

In my December 2000 editorial I described the plight of Le Français dans le Monde and the attempts to revive this important Francophone journal. I am delighted to report that Le Français dans le Monde, with help from the Ministère des Affaires étrangères and the Ministère de l'Education nationale, has indeed resurfaced as the official journal of the Fédération internationale des professeurs de français, whose own bulletin, L'Univers du français, has been incorporated in Le Français dans le Monde. The director of the publication is Martine Defontaine, also the Executive Director of the FIPF, and Françoise Ploquin, the former Associate Editor, is now Editor in Chief. Le Français dans le Monde is published by Clé Internationale and has moved to internationalize its perspectives by forming a Conseil d'Orientation with representatives from the FIPF and Francophone countries around the world, including our own Jean-Pierre Piriou, President of the AATF. A new Comité de Rédaction has also been formed, and I was honored to be asked to serve on it.

In the September National Bulletin you will find a detailed announcement of how to receive Le Français dans le Monde at a much reduced rate. I urge you to support the increased international thrust of the AATF and to inform yourselves about francophonie in all its dimensions by subscribing. Le Français dans le Monde also provides many pedagogical exercises and short features that teachers at all levels will find useful. You may well want to become a member of the FIPF and join its 90,000 members found in 128 countries.

On a sad note I must tell you of the death of one of the Assistant Editors of the French Review, Mary Lydon, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Mary was an accomplished scholar of twentieth-century literature and published widely on authors from Beckett to Mallarmé. She also published a book of her collected essays and a book on Michel Butor. Mary was Irish and, not surprisingly, a brilliant and witty conversationalist who possessed great charm. Hope always sprung eternal in Mary's breast, and even as she was dying of cancer, Mary was directing programs in Ireland, giving public lectures on Freud, and planning an essay on the topic of "publish or perish" for publication in the French Review. Mary is already greatly missed by all those who knew her, but her memory will brighten all our days.

A happier announcement is that Jordan Stump of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, will succeed Mary as an Assistant Editor for literature.

Finally, I want to remind you of the Special Issue scheduled for May 2003 to be devoted to Francophone topics in honor of the meeting of the AATF to be held in Martinique in July of 2003. Articles may treat literature, film, society and culture, linguistics, or pedagogy, but should not be overspecialized. The deadline for submission is August 1, 2002, and all manuscripts should be sent to me.

Christopher P. Pinet