Hermione Lee

"A superb collection...Page after page, Gallant dazzles. Her voice and sensibility are penetrating, canny, graceful, and incisive."--Washington Post Best of the Year from Our Pages--The New Yorker Enthralling essays on the expatriate experience in Paris and shrewd literary criticism by one of the twentieth century's finest writers. Mavis Gallant is revered as one of the great short story writers of her generation, but she was also an astute observer and formidable reporter. This selection of Gallant's essays and reviews written between 1968 and 1985 begins with her impressions of the Parisian student uprising in May 1968. Originally published in The New Yorker, "The Events in May" inspired Wes Anderson's film The French Dispatch and Gallant herself served as inspiration for the journalist portrayed by Frances McDormand. Paris Notebooks presents a whole range of subjects portraying French society, ranging from architecture and literature to the gripping story of Gabrielle Russier, a young French schoolteacher driven to imprisonment, madness, and suicide as the result of an affair with one of her students. Also included are Gallant's astute reviews of books by major figures such as Vladimir Nabokov, Simone de Beauvoir, Colette, and G nter Grass. No matter what form she's working in, Mavis Gallant's flawless prose is always full of wit and acuity. This Nonpareil edition includes a new introduction by acclaimed literary biographer Hermione Lee.

Winner of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography 2014Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best BiographyNew York Times Book Reviewâ??s 10 Best Books of the YearPenelope Fitzgerald (1916â??2000) was a great English writer, who would never have described herself in such grand terms.

This book, first published in 1977, is not about Bloomsbury, lesbianism, madness or suicide, but is a much-needed introduction to Virginia Woolf’s nine novels, written in the hope of turning attention back from the life to the fictional work. Its clarity and insights will make this book invaluable to a student embarking on a study of Virginia Woolf as a novelist, and to all those whose interest has been aroused by the continuing publication of biographical material. It will, moreover, increase the enjoyment, not only of enthusiasts, but also of those who have hitherto, found her a ‘difficult’ writer.