The popular but sold-out memorial issue of the French weekly Charlie Hebdo will soon be available at most Barnes & Noble stores.
The book chain is expected to get a limited number of copies of the publication — part of a new shipment of 20,000 copies headed to the US — sometime next week.
“At present, the French publisher of Charlie Hebdo, has not made available an English version of its publication in the US,” B&N spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating told Media Ink on Thursday.
“A limited number of the original Jan. 14 edition of the French newspaper is being offered to US booksellers and other news agents,” she added. “Barnes & Noble is included in those who will carry it.”
LMPI, the Montreal-based distributor of foreign periodicals, is the source of the new 20,000 copies headed here — as well as the 12,000 additional copies headed for outlets in Canada, according to Martin McEwen, LMPI’s executive vice president.
Five million copies of the memorial issue sold out in France within hours of going on sale Jan. 14. Copies in US stores have been much more rare.
Three Manhattan bookstores — Albertine, Book Culture and McNally Jackson — received about 100 copies each from French subscription marketer UNI-presse last weekend and quickly sold out.
They are not being resupplied — but other outlets may be getting their first copies as early as Friday.
It is expected to sell for $7 to $8.50 a copy.
“We’ll be getting about 5,000 to 6,000 to New York, another 5,000 to 6,000 to California, and the rest will be spread across the country,” said McEwen.
The copies will carry the now familiar cartoon of a weeping prophet Mohammed carrying a sign that says “Je Suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”).
The 8-page memorial edition hit newsstands in France exactly one week after Islamic extremists murdered 12 staffers in the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo.