The North China Lover: A Novel - Softcover

Duras, Marguerite

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565840437 ISBN 13: 9781565840430

Publisher: The New Press, 2008

Synopsis

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 this title

From the Back Cover:

Already acclaimed in France as 'an incomparable pleasure', and as her best book for many years, Marguerite Dura's new novel is a fascinating retelling of the dramatic experiences of her adolescence – as previously described in 'The Lover'.

The most daring and truthful book she has written, 'The North China Lover' emphasis the harsh realities of Dura's youth in Indochina, and reveals much that her earlier works concealed. Gone are the romantic and nostalgic readings of the past. Here are the humiliations and passions of the poverty-ridden world in which Duras grew up; the intense sexuality and the young girls who were her friends and classmates, a group of adolescents impatient for the experiences of adult life, but still caught up in the passions of childhood.

Described by French critics as a return to 'the Duras of the great books and the great days', 'The North China Lover' is an exciting and unexpected reading of the past life of a great European author.

'Everything is here, immediate, sensual. It's utterly stunning and diabolical.'
LE POINT

'One of the most sensitive, the most touching of stories. Delicate in its immodesty, tender in its cruelty.'
NOUVELLE OBSERVATEUR

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1565840437
• ISBN 13: 9781565840430
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240