And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-occupied Paris - Hardcover

Alan Riding

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0715640674 ISBN 13: 9780715640678

Publisher: Duckworth, 2011

Synopsis

'Fascinating... a serious piece of scholarship, but one that reads like a novel.' Observer

In June 1940, Paris fell to the Nazis who made the world's cultural capital their favourite entertainment ground. Music halls and cabarets thrived during the occupation, providing plenty of work for actors, singers and musicians except for the Jews. The likes of Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf, who had entertained the French troops, now unabashedly provided amusement to the Germans.

After the invasion of France, those artists still in Paris had to find ways to survive. Although Matisse and others kept out of view, Picasso could not avoid Nazi visitors. A few, like Beckett, joined the Resistance. Some were arrested and died in German hands. Others entertained the enemy. The theatres reopened, the movie cameras rolled, galleries sold paintings looted from Jewish families, pro-German writers and their rivals fought in print. Told through the experiences of renowned creative figures and witnesses of the times, And the Show Went On is an authoritative account of how Paris's artistic world lived through the Occupation during which some suffered Nazi oppression while others prospered through collaboration.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Riding trained as an economist and lawyer before joining Reuters, the Financial Times and then The New York Times, reporting from Mexico, Brazil, Rome and finally Paris for twelve years as European Cultural Correspondent. His previous book Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans (Random House) has sold over 450,000 copies.

Edition details

• Publisher: Duckworth
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0715640674
• ISBN 13: 9780715640678
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432