Prepare for a backlash: Fréderic Mitterand’s “La Mauvaise Vie” gets an American release.

French culture minster Fréderic Mitterand can’t do anything wrong in France. In his 2005 autobiography he admitted to paying for sex with young boys but was allowed to keep his job (“I got into the habit of paying for boys…All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excite me enormously. One could judge this abominable spectacle from a moral standpoint but it pleases me beyond the reasonable.” ) He was also the first to speak out in favor of releasing child rapist Roman Polanski from custody in Switzerland.

Now his book is being translated in English for the American market. New York publishing house Soft Skull has scheduled a March 2010 release but remains modest about the sales — they expect to find 4,000 buyers at the most. The first thing they’ll probably do is change the cover photo: the French one is really scandalous!