Wartime Writings: 1943-1949

by Marguerite Duras, Sophie Bogaert (Editor), Oliver Corpet (Editor), Linda Coverdale (Translator)

Overview

For fifty years, celebrated literary figure Marguerite Duras kept four small notebooks filled with writings from the World War II years hidden in a closet in her country home in France. Published in their entirety for the first time, these remarkable wartime writings include slices of autobiography and feature the early drafts of and true stories behind Duras's most famous works. Hailed as a "marvel and a treasure" (Le Monde), Wartime Writings chronicles the poignant circumstances of her childhood in colonial Vietnam, her experiences with the French Resistance during the war, and the conflicted and exhilarating time of the Liberation and the early postwar years. Throughout, Duras paints an unflinching portrait of this troubled and formative period in France's history.

One of France's most important literary figures, Marguerite Duras (1914-1996) is best known for her autobiographical novel The Lover as well as the screenplay for Hiroshima Mon Amour. Her memoir (The War) and a later autobiographical novel (The North China Lover) are both available from The New Press. A Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des lettres, Linda Coverdale has won the Scott Moncrieff Prize and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize. She has translated over fifty books, many of them for The New Press.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595582003
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	03/01/2008
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

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.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Note on the Transcription xv

Note on the Translation xvii

I The War Notebooks

Pink Marbled Notebook

Introduction 5

Childhood and Adolescence in Indochina 7

Ter of the Militia (Rough Draft) 51

Wife to Marcel 59

Albert of the Capitals (Rough Draft) 61

The Rue de la Gaiete 73

The Sea Wall (Rough Draft) 75

Expecting 77

The Sea Wall (Rough Draft) 79

20th Century Press Notebook

Introduction 93

Theodora 95

The War (Rough Draft) 103

Hundred-Page Notebook

Introduction 125

The War (Rough Draft) 127

Beige Notebook

Introduction 151

The Sea Wall (Rough Draft) 153

The Horror of Such Love (Rough Draft) 159

Vacation with D. 163

Memories of Italy 165

Did Not Die Deported 179

The Sailor from Gibraltar (Rough Draft) 185

Rue Saint-Benoit: Madame Dodin (Rough Draft) 191

II Other Texts

Introduction 227

Boundless Childhood 229

Stories 241

Cambodian Dancers 243

"Is That You, Sister Marguerite?" 247

Horror 251

The Bible 259

The Stolen Pigeons 263

Eda or the Leaves 269

The War Notebooks and the Published Works of Marguerite Duras 281

Index of People and Characters 285

Detailed Table of Contents 291

Editorial Reviews

This engrossing volume of newly published material from French novelist and memoirist Duras's wartime notebooks contains writing as roiled and violent as the years that produced it. Selections range from novella-length down to paragraph- or sentence-long fragments and include stories, polemics, notes and even an ad for a maid; the mix of fiction and nonfiction lets us follow characters, events and themes from Duras's autobiographical writings through various drafts into fictional form. Landmarks include her memoir of youth in Indochina in an impoverished, déclassé French family-beaten viciously by her mother and brother, then embarking on an affair with a repulsive, wealthy Vietnamese man who seems her only ticket out; this supremely rancid vision of colonial rot would become her celebrated novel The Lover. Duras's experiences in the French Resistance yield harrowing stories about the torture of a suspected collaborator, and several nonfiction pieces recount her agonizing wait for her husband's return from a German concentration camp at war's end. Even her quieter writings have an edge to them, as in a study of early morning street life in front of her apartment that sparks a meditation on class warfare. Duras's fans will recognize and thrill to her unique voice as it develops-feverish, sometimes feral, yet pitilessly unsentimental. (Mar.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

These writings, described by the editors as "the birth of the oeuvre of Marguerite Duras" (1914-96), were culled from four of the French novelist's notebooks acquired by the Institut de la Mémoire de l'Édition Contemporaine (Inst. of Contemporary Publishing Archives) in 1995. This is the first time they are being published in English (Coverdale is the award-winning translator of Jean Echenoz's Ravel), and readers and scholars with an interest in Duras or an appreciation of her work will find them nothing less than intoxicating. Duras's four "War Notebooks," which she kept in a closet in her French country home, contain autobiographical accounts of her childhood and youth in Indochina, various writing fragments, and drafts of several published works, including the masterpiece The War. The autobiographical entries reveal Duras's material for the successful novel The Lover, while the final pages provide four autobiographical texts and six stories (five of which have never before been published) written around the same time period. A helpful index to people and characters and a detailed table of contents are additional enhancements. Highly recommended for all literature collections.
—Stacy Russo Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

School Library Journal

"A marvel and a treasure." —Le Monde

"Unfettered access to one of the great literary minds of our time." —San Francisco Chronicle

"Duras' fans will recognize and thrill to her unique voice as it develops—feverish, sometimes feral, yet pitilessly unsentimental." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher