Cécile Ganne presents "Scent of a Truffle"

If you would prefer to buy your ticket by phone, you may call Wellesley Books at 781-431-1160.

About ticketing:

• Admission to the event is $5.
• To purchase the book with your admission, choose Admission + Book and we will waive your admission fee.
• If you decide to purchase the book at the event, we will discount your book purchase by $5.

Please note that you must purchase your copy of the book from Wellesley Books in order to have the author sign it at the event.

Please also note that we cannot issue ticket refunds within 48 hours of the event.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The medieval village of St. Calin is preparing for the celebration of la Fête de la Truffle — The Truffle Fair.

Adèle Montfort is a dying widow. She has lived her entire life on a truffle-rich patch of land in the southwestern French town of Calignac, famous for its annual Fête de la Truffe.

The land has been in her family for generations and will eventually go to her granddaughter, Mathilde.

Or so she hopes.

When the town Mayor schemes to acquire Adèle's property in order to sell her truffles and game to a famous Parisian culinary chef, Adèle faces a woeful dilemma: Should she simply step aside and live out her remaining days in peace? Or should she pick up her last battle and fend off the Mayor's ruthless plot?

What follows is a story about greed, cultural heritage, and awakening as Adèle undertakes instilling the value of legacy into her granddaughter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

From the author's website: "I was born in the Dordogne Valley of Southwest France, a region steeped in prehistoric cave art, limestone cliffs, and contemplative beauty. I grew up among walnut groves, Romanesque churches, and the Cubist paintings of my grandmother, whose art studio became my first school. That landscape—its ochre-tilled earth, fog-covered hills, and unhurried rhythm—continues to shape my creative process. Even now, while painting and writing far from home, I carry with me the belief that memory has texture and that the soul of a place often hides in its silences.

Painting and writing are, for me, two expressions of the same impulse. They create in-between moments—openings into stillness and meaning. From my studio in Boston’s SoWa Art District, I work primarily in oil and cold wax, creating layered abstract compositions that evoke both natural landscapes and inner states. I’m drawn to the liminal—thresholds between light and shadow, figuration and abstraction, silence and expression. Painting is my way of listening.

My debut novella, Scent of a Truffle, is a literary homage to the land that raised me—an intimate portrait of the black truffle region of France, shaped by legacy, slow living, and the sensory depth of tradition. I hold a Ph.D. in French literature, with degrees from La Sorbonne and Boston University, and teach at Wellesley College, where I share my passion for French culture, language, and women’s voices across centuries."

ABOUT THE INTERLOCUTOR

From the Sara Kippur's website: "I teach modern French literature and culture at Wellesley College, where I am Professor and Chair of the Department of French, Francophone, and Italian Studies. My books and articles draw on translation theory, book history, and media studies to frame our understanding of 20th and 21st-century French fiction. As a former Newhouse Faculty Fellow and Camargo Fellow in Cassis, I completed my most recent book, New York Nouveau: How Postwar French Literature Became American (Stanford University Press [Post*45], 2025). I am currently preparing a new cultural history about a wartime artists’ community in Oppède, France."