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'Startlingly audacious.' Literary Review
New writing from the literary master
Throughout Proust’s life, nine of his short stories remained unseen – the writer never even spoke of them. Perhaps he was not ready to share the early themes he was nurturing for his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. Or perhaps, in dealing directly with gay desire, they were too audacious – too near to life – for the censorious society of the time.
In these stories, published in English for the first time, we find an intimate portrait of a young author full of darkness, complexity and melancholy, longing to reveal himself to the world.
Charlotte Mandell
Translated by
A Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Charlotte Mandell has translated over fifty books from the French, including works by Flaubert, Proust, and Genet. In 2001 she received a translation prize from the Modern Language Association for her translation of Faux Pas by Maurice Blanchot, in 2018 she won the National Translation Award in Prose for her translation of Compass by Mathias Énard, in 2024 she received the Thornton Wilder Translation Prize from the Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2026 she received the French American Foundation Translation Prize for her translation of The Deserters by Mathias Énard. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, the poet Robert Kelly.
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