Synopses & Reviews
This collection of French short stories in translation expands our idea of French writing by including new stories by women writers and by authors of Francophone origin. Spanning the centuries from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth, the collection opens with a rumbustious tale from the Marquis de Sade, takes in the masters of the nineteenth century, from Stendhal and Balzac to Maupassant, and reaches to Quebec, Africa, and the French Caribbean in the twentieth century. Women writers include relatively well known figures such as Renee Vivien, Colette, and Beauvoir, and newer writers such as Assia Djebar, Christiane Baroche, and Annie Saumont. The French short story is a rich and diverse medium, but all the stories selected share a common characteristic: they make exciting reading.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The husband who said mass, Marquis de Sade
Vanina Vanini, Stendhal
The coffee pot, Theophile Gautier
The message, Honore de Balzac
The Venus of Ille, Prosper Merimee
Story of a Madman, Emile Zola
The last lesson, Leon Daudet
A Simple Heart, Gustave Flaubert
The Necklace, Guy de Maupassant
At Sea, Guy de Maupassant
Gloomy Tale, Gloomier Teller, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
Knapsack at the ready, Joris-Karl Huysmans
The Lady with the She-Wolf, Renee Vivien
The Walking Stick, Marcel Ayme
Gribiche, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
The Wall, Jean-Paul Sartre
The man in the street, Georges Simenon
An Errand, Birago Diop
The Guest, Albert Camus
Monologue, Simone de Beauvoir
The Lily of the Valley Lay-by, Michel Tournier
Do you remember the rue d'Orchampt?, Christiane Baroche
The checkup, Herve Guibert
There is No Exile, Assia Djebar
The Negro with the White Shadow, Rene Depestre
The Underwear of the Woman Up Above, Frederic Fajardie
The Finest Stroy in the World, Annie Saumont
Public Transit, Monique Proulx