by Julien Gracq (Author)
A literary travel essay on the city of Nantes by the great 20th century French novelist, essayist, critic and geographer, Julien Gracq.
The most original book of Julien Gracq's later output is about Nantes. It begins with a quotation from Baudelaire that Gracq repeats and distorts: "The shape of a city, as we all know, changes more quickly than the mortal heart."
Gracq's later work, set provocatively in verifiable land- and cityscapes, seems profoundly challenged by Proust's synthesis of realism, reverie, and remembrance.
Author Biography
Julien Gracq (1910-2007), born Louis Poirier in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, was one of the greatest French writers of the twentieth century. His work included essays, criticism, fiction and journalism. He won but refused the Prix Goncourt in 1951 for his novel Le Rivage des Syrtes (The Opposing Shore). This retiring and misunderstood figure said he wrote to settle a score with expression itself, to give form, stability, precision to things that are vague in the mind.