European Fiction

French literary figure Charles Baudelaire was a member of the infamous Club of the Hashish-Eaters, a Parisian literary group dedicated to the exploration of altered states of consciousness, principally through the use of hashish. The Poem of Hashish was first published in 1850. This is Aleister Crowley’s translation of it, from 1895. Baudelaire was part of the French art movement known as saymbolism, which acted as a reaction to realism and placed a lot of emphasis on the power of dreams and the imagination as tools for communicating ideals through symbols.

One of the best-known collections of W. B. Yeats' prose, The Celtic Twilight explores the old connection between the Irish people and the magical world of fairies. Yeats, by traveling the land in the early 20th century and talking to the common people about their experiences with the creatures, yielded a colorful overview of Celtic fairy folklore.

One of Henry James’ main themes was the interaction between the Old World and the New. Restless Baroness Eugenia Munster and her charming bohemian brother Felix are visiting their American cousins in Boston, New England. The effect these two extravagant characters have on their austere Puritan relations forms the substance of the book and is told in a series of scenes or ‘sketches’.

Max Anger is a man on the edge. The former fighter in an elite band of special-ops soldiers in Sweden, Anger is haunted by battle scars, a childhood spent in the Stockholm archipelago, and his own mysterious family past. Now behind a desk at Vektor, a think tank conducting research on Russia, he’s met his match - and fallen in love - with fierce fellow operative Pashie Kovalenko. Like all of Vektor, she’s set her sights on the tenuous future of her country.

History tells us that the intelligent, wealthy, and powerful Margaret of York had everything any woman could want, except for love. The acclaimed author of A Rose for the Crown takes us between the lines of history and into her heart. It is 1461. Edward, son of Richard of York, ascends to the...

Throughout his life, Gabriel García Márquez spoke publicly with the same passion and energy that marked his writing. Now the wisdom and compassion of these performances are available in English for the first time. I’m Not Here to Give a Speech records key events throughout the author’s life, from a farewell to his classmates delivered when he was only 17 to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

En 1651, Robinson Crusoé quitte York, en Angleterre pour naviguer, contre la volonté de ses parents qui voulaient qu'il devienne avocat. Le navire est arraisonné par des pirates de Salé et Crusoé devient l'esclave d'un Maure. Il parvient à s'échapper sur un bateau et ne doit son salut qu'à un navire portugais qui passe au large de la côte ouest de l'Afrique. Arrivé au Brésil, Crusoé devient le propriétaire d'une plantation.

Cabrera Infante's masterpiece, Three Trapped Tigers is one of the most playful books to reach the US from Cuba. Filled with puns, wordplay, lists upon lists, and Sternean typography - such as the section entitled "Some Revelations", which consists of several blank minutes - this novel has been praised as a more modern, sexier, funnier, Cuban Ulysses.

In mid-nineteenth-century Ireland, charming Kathleen and dashing Michael harbor secrets and dreams. Imagining a life beyond the kitchen and fields of the wealthy family they both work for, they plot to leave their homeland, marry, and raise the child Kathleen is secretly carrying. The luck of the Irish, however, is not on their side. Soon, they find themselves swept up in circumstances they never could have fathomed. Kathleen is forced to marry against her will and immigrate to New Zealand.

Emma Woodhouse, "belle, intelligente et riche" a vingt-et-un ans. Elle habite la belle demeure de Hartfield, près du gros bourg de Highbury, avec son père âgé, hypocondriaque et veuf, entourée d'amis fidèles, tel Mr. Knightley, son beau-frère, propriétaire du riche domaine voisin de Donwell Abbey. Son ancienne gouvernante, Miss Taylor, vient d'épouser un veuf fortuné, Mr. Weston, dont le fils a été adopté tout jeune par son oncle et sa tante, les Churchill, avec qui il vit à Enscombe, dans le Yorkshire.

Olivia Denis is a content young wife with a carefree life in late 1930s London. Then her world is shattered with the violent death of her husband, Reggie. The police want to call it a suicide and close the case, but Olivia knows Reggie couldn't possibly have fired the fatal shot. Further mysteries surface surrounding her husband's death. Did the trustworthy Foreign Office employee betray government secrets? Was his murder linked to the death of a German embassy clerk the same night? And who searched their flat?

La poésie lyrique du début du XXème siècle est à la fois héritère et novatrice dans ses thèmes comme dans sa forme avec une nette prédilection pour le vers libre. Continuité du mouvement symbolisme (Anna de Noailles), de la lignée de la cérébralité et du travail formel mallarméen, de la libération de thèmes nouveaux comme l'humilité du quotidien (Francis James) et de l'ouverture au monde moderne (Emille Verhaeren).

Cette histoire tient en quelques mots, ceux que la cadette, témoin malgré elle, prononce en tremblant : " Papa vient de tuer maman. "

C'est l'histoire de Guille... C'est l'histoire d'un petit garçon débordant d'imagination qui voue un amour sans bornes à Mary Poppins. L'histoire d'un père un peu bougon, qui vit seul avec ce fils sensible et rêveur dont il a du mal à accepter le caractère. D'une institutrice qui s'inquiète confusément pour l'un de ses élèves qui vit un peu trop dans ses rêves. D'une psychologue scolaire à qui on envoie un petit garçon qui a l'air d'aller beaucoup trop bien. Quel mystère se cache derrière cette apparence si tranquille, et pourtant si fragile ?

After WWII, a small Italian town struggles to emerge from under the thumb of Fascism. With wit, tenderness, and irony, Elsa, the novel’s narrator, weaves a rich tapestry of provincial Italian life: two generations of neighbors and relatives, their gossip and shattered dreams, their heartbreaks and struggles to find happiness. Elsa wants to imagine a future for herself, free from the expectations and burdens of her town’s history, but the weight of the past will always prove unbearable, insistently posing the question: “Why has everything been ruined?”

"J'ai longtemps rêvé que l'histoire de ma naissance exhibe ses entrailles. Quelle que soit l'odeur qui en surgisse. La pire des puanteurs, c'est le silence." PRIX D'HONNEUR FILIGRANES 2020. Je m'appelle Hildegard Müller. Ceci est mon journal. Le Troisième Reich m'a enfantée. Je suis une oubliée de l'histoire. La seule race que les SS aient créée, c'est la race des orphelins. Qui est Hildegard Müller ? Le jour où il la rencontre, l'homme engagé pour écrire son histoire apprend qu'elle a 76 ans, qu'elle sait à peine lire, à peine écrire.

Le voyage dans le passé est l'histoire des retrouvailles au goût amer entre un homme et une femme qui se sont aimés et croient s'aimer encore. Louis, jeune homme pauvre mû par une "volonté fanatique", tombe amoureux de la femme de son riche bienfaiteur, mais il est envoyé au Mexique pour une mission de confiance. La grande guerre éclate. Ils ne se reverront que neuf ans plus tard. L'amour résiste-t-il à tout ? A l'usure du temps, à la trahison, à une tragédie ?

Au tournant du XXe siècle, on laisse de plus en plus à la jeune fille la liberté de choisir son mari ; une place est faite à ses préférences et plus encore à ses inclinations : on lui permet d'aimer, quitte à contredire les us et coutumes qui mettent l'amour après le mariage - la femme n'attend plus d'être mariée, d'avoir acquis une identité sociale par sa dot, pour éprouver des sentiments. D'où l'insistance de "Gigi" : être aimée comme elle aime ; échapper au conventionnel d'une vie mondaine où elle sera traitée en conquête de l'homme, faire-valoir négligeable de la masculinité qui l'entretient.

Under the Greenwood Tree is an affectionate and youthful portrait of a world Hardy knew well - village life in 'Wessex' - in which a romantic tale is set against changing circumstances. The traditional feature of local music making performed by the village band and choir is challenged by the modern innovation of organ and organist providing music in the church.

Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy's second novel, was published in 1872 and became the first of his great series of Wessex novels. The book, subtitled A Rural Painting of the Dutch School, tells the endearing tale of a group of church musicians who accompany the hymns at the local Mellstock parish choir and we follow the fortunes of one of its member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day.