Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London - Hardcover

Elkin, Lauren

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0701189029 ISBN 13: 9780701189020

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2016

Synopsis

Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 by the Financial Times, Guardian, New Statesman, Observer, The Millions and Emerald Street * As read on BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week * 'Flâneuse [flanne-euhze], noun, from the French. Feminine form of flâneur [flanne-euhr], an idler, a dawdling observer, usually found in cities. That is an imaginary definition.' If the word flâneur conjures up visions of Baudelaire, boulevards and bohemia – then what exactly is a flâneuse? In this gloriously provocative and celebratory book, Lauren Elkin defines her as `a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’. Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse traces the relationship between the city and creativity through a journey that begins in New York and moves us to Paris, via Venice, Tokyo and London, exploring along the way the paths taken by the flâneuses who have lived and walked in those cities. From nineteenth-century novelist George Sand to artist Sophie Calle, from war correspondent Martha Gellhorn to film-maker Agnes Varda, Flâneuse considers what is at stake when a certain kind of light-footed woman encounters the city and changes her life, one step at a time.

About this title

About the Author

Lauren Elkin is the author of several critically-acclaimed books, including Scaffolding, Art Monsters, and Flâneuse. Her essays on art, literature, and culture have appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Times, Granta, Harper's, Le Monde, Les Inrockuptibles, and Frieze, among others. An award-winning translator, she lives between Paris and London.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0701189029
• ISBN 13: 9780701189020
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336