Room H – French Literature

Room H is dedicated mostly to French Literature form the medieval age to contemporary literature, but comprises also collections of Greek and Latin languages and literature, linguistics, and French languages in all their diversity. Francophone literature is also generously represented and is completed by a cultural resource centre on Francophonie. Room H offers 37,000 documents and 137 seats.

Salle H – Littérature française © Béatrice Lucchese / BnF

Collections

French Literature (26,150 volumes)

The collection offers a large panorama of the French literary production (shelfmarked by century and by author) but also of books on literary creation. This Public Library Room features promenintely 20th and 21th-century production, and particularly contemporary creation; detective novels, science fiction, and graphic novels are not forgotten.

Francophone Literature (4,310 volumes)

The collections are divided into ten geographical areas: Subsaharan Africa, North America, Asia/Pacific, Carribean, Maghreb, Indian ocean, Near East, Switzerland, Belgium/Luxemburg, and other European countries. They also offer general books (anthologies, dictionaries), literary works (novels, poetry, theater) classified by author, as well as and critical studies.

Linguistics (1,580 volumes)

General Linguistics, phonetics, morphology, syntax, lexicology and a number or French language periodicals in the field.

French language and regional languages (1,410 volumes)

General and theoretical works and periodicals on the history of the French language covering fileds such as philology, etymological dictionaries, history of linguistic normalization.

Languages and Greek and Latin languages (2,030 volumes)

In room H, readers will find general works on these two ancient languages and especially bilingual corpora from major classical authors and the most notable critical editions.

Francophone resource centre

This centre currently offers 625 volumes and gathers documentation on history, sociology, arts and culture in francophone countries classified by geographical area. Yoy may also find travel guides, graphic novels and works on art and music.

Francophone portal
This information and documentation portal in French presents news on Francophonie and a selection of resources: recent books and films, conferences, websites etc.

Services offered

Group room (3 people)
4 audiovisual stations
Reproduction room (1 scanner and 2 microfiche readers) with a Sedeco card reader
Access to the Sound, Video, Multimedia portal

Noteworthy collections

Manuals and reference works
Exam preparation, past exam papers etc.
Detective novels and French science fiction : in the so-called Yellow Room, the collections feature the most relevant works by French authors of detective novels (880 volumes) and science fiction (410 volumes).