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The Penguin Book of French Short Stories. Volume 2 From Colette to Marie Ndiaye

£30.00

This two-volume feast of an anthology celebrates the rich tradition of the French short story. Spanning four centuries, its pages brim with decadent tales, ‘bloody tales’ and fairy tales, detective stories and war stories, the experimental and the existential. These are tales about the self and the other, the fantastic and the realist, the country and the city, the nation and the colony, told in an eclectic array of voices and styles.The collection features stories by the most famous writers across the Francophone world, from Voltaire to Simone de Beauvoir, as well as rare treasures and contemporary writers like Marie Ndiaye and Virginie Despentes, some of them translated for the first time here. By turns playful and profound, sublime and absurd, the second volume takes the reader from the First World War to the millennium.

In stock

Description

A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022

‘Beautiful and deep … a sumptuous treat for any book lover’ The Independent

‘There is so much to discover in these stories – both history and food for short story lovers everywhere’ Irish Times

A major new celebration of the French short story across the twentieth century

The short story has a rich tradition in French literature. This feast of an anthology celebrates its most famous practitioners, as well as newly translated writers ready for rediscovery. Here are fables, puzzles, fairy tales, war stories and family histories, testing and expanding the boundaries of the form. They are stories about the self and the other, the centre and the periphery, experimental and existential, real and surreal.

The second volume takes the reader through the tumultuous twentieth century in the company of writers including Simone de Beauvoir and Maryse Condé, Patrick Modiano and Virginie Despentes, covering world wars, revolutions, and the horrors of the motorway service station. Along the way we meet electronic brains, she-wolves, a sadistic Cinderella, ancestors, infidels, dissatisfied housewives and lonely ambassadors, all clamouring to be heard. Funny, devastating and fresh at every turn, this is the place to start for lovers of French literature, new and old.

Edited and with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness, academic, writer and translator.

Read a sample here

Additional information

Weight 0.691 kg
Dimensions 24 × 16.2 × 3.4 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages
Language

English

Edition

Short stories

Dewey

843.0108 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K