French Archives

Our Pierre

by Cormac James,

From Trondheim, which was published last month by Bellevue Literary Press. On the day their son was going to die, Lil had given herself the task of carrying forty-plus sacks…

Film Bête Noire

by Marguerite Duras,

From My Cinema, which was published by Another Gaze Editions in January. Translated from the French by Daniella Shreir. No longer any use in the make-believe of socialist hope. In…

Love Hurts

by Édouard Louis,

From a fictional dialogue with his father in his novel Change, which will be published this month by Harvill Secker. Translated from the French by John Lambert. Before meeting Elena…

Triangulation

by Thomas Chatterton Williams,

As of this writing, the United States, which has 4.2 percent of the world’s population, accounts for nearly 30 percent of total COVID-19 mortalities. Among Americans, a common response to…

Trash, Rock, Destroy

by Lauren Elkin,

Is Virginie Despentes the French writer America needs?

Fighting Dirty

by Anne Garréta, Emma Ramadan,

By Anne Garréta, from Not One Day, which was published this month by Deep Vellum. Garréta is a French novelist and a member of the Oulipo. Not One Day chronicles…

Grim Sleeper

by Michel Leiris,

By Michel Leiris (1901–90), from Nights as Day, Days as Night, a chronicle of the author’s dreams between 1923 and 1961. The book was published last month by Spurl Editions.…

The Notes of Patrick Modiano

by Peter De Jonge,

A young writer finds his voice on the radio

Old Master

by Marcel Proust,

By Marcel Proust (1871–1922), from an essay included in Chardin and Rembrandt, which will be published next month by David Zwirner Books as part of a new series featuring exemplary…

The Joke

by Justin Smith,

By Justin E. H. Smith, from “The Fundamentals of Gelastics,” a work in progress. Smith’s latest book, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference (Princeton), will be published in June. In…

Brussels Spleen

by Charles Baudelaire,Translated by Richard Sieburth,

From an outline for a book Charles Baudelaire planned to write on Belgium, where he lived from 1864 until shortly before his death, in 1867. The outline is published in…

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