Synopses & Reviews
Far more daring and truthful than any of her other novels, The North China Lover is a fascinating retelling of the dramatic experiences of Duras’s adolescence that shaped her most famous work. Initially conceived as notes toward a screenplay for The Lover, this later novel, written toward the end of her life, emphasizes the tougher aspects of her youth in Indochina and possesses the intimate feel of a documentary.
Both shocking and enthralling, the story Duras tells is “so powerfully imagined (or remembered) that it . . . lingers like a strong perfume” (Publishers Weekly). Hailed by the French critics as a return to “the Duras of the great books and the great days,” it is a mature and complex rendering of a formative period in the author’s life.
Review
"Duras's story is so powerfully imagined (or remembered) that its blend of passion and cynicism lingers like a strong perfume. Irresistible for grownup romantics." Publishers Weekly
Review
"An original and powerful book, with the brutal honesty of a black-and-white documentary." Chicago Tribune
Review
"The North China Lover sends a strange thrill through you....There is a strangeness in [this] novel that is its own, a quality that keep[s] this story from being reduced, and in the end makes it, for all its brevity, immense." New York Times Book Review
Review
"[Duras] paints so complex a portrait of these people and their suffering and despair...that we can never merely see the dogmatic or political truth at the expense of the personal." San Francisco Chronicle
Synopsis
For fans of Duras's enduring bestseller The Lover, an evocative and intimate exploration of the drama and power of adolescence, in a remarkable blend of fiction and memoir
Far more daring and truthful than any of her other novels, The North China Lover is a fascinating retelling of the dramatic experiences of Duras's adolescence that shaped her most famous work. Initially conceived as notes toward a screenplay for The Lover, this later novel, written toward the end of her life, emphasizes the tougher aspects of her youth in Indochina and possesses the intimate feel of a documentary.
Both shocking and enthralling, the story Duras tells is "so powerfully imagined (or remembered) that it . . . lingers like a strong perfume" (Publishers Weekly). Hailed by the French critics as a return to "the Duras of the great books and the great days," it is a mature and complex rendering of a formative period in the author's life.
About the Author
Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) was one of France’s most important literary figures. She is the author of such acclaimed novels as
The Lover,
The Ravishing of Lol Stein, and
The Sailor from Gibraltar and wrote the screenplay for
Hiroshima Mon Amour. The New Press has published translations of her books
The North China Lover,
The War, and
Wartime Writings.