These three short novels are the first works to appear in English
by a remarkable contemporary French author, Marie Redonnet. Born in
Paris in 1947, Redonnet taught for a number of years in a suburban
"lycee" before deciding to pursue a writing career full time. Since
her volume of poetry "Le Mort & Cie" appeared in 1985, she has
published four novels, a novella, numerous short stories, and three
dramatic works.
In translator Jordan Stump's words, these three novels,
"unmistakably fit together, although they have neither characters
nor setting in common. Redonnet sees the three novels as a
triptych: each panel stands alone, and yet all coalesce to form a
whole." Each is narrated by a different woman. "Hotel Splendid
"recounts the daily life of three sisters who live in a decrepit
hotel on the edge of a swamp; "Forever Valley "is about a
sixteen-year-old girl who works in a dance-hall and looks for the
dead; "Rose Mellie Rose" is the story of another adolescent girl
who assembles a photographic and written record of her life in the
dying town of Oat.
Redonnet's novels have been compared to those of Annie Ernaux,
Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Samuel Beckett. She has since acknowledged
the crucial influence which Beckett's work has had upon her
literary work. And yet she is also notably different from the great
master of modern literature. "Where Beckett's characters slide
almost inevitably toward extinction, resignation, and silence,"
Stump points out, "Redonnet's display a force for life and creation
that borders on the triumphant. . . . They] retain even in the
darkest situations a remarkable persistence, openness, and above
all hope, a hope that may well be, however unspectacularly, repaid
in the end."
General
Imprint: |
Bison Books
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
European Women Writers |
Release date: |
September 1994 |
First published: |
September 1994 |
Authors: |
Marie Redonnet
|
Translators: |
Jordan Stump
|
Dimensions: |
191 x 121 x 11mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade / Trade
|
Pages: |
117 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8032-8951-2 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
0-8032-8951-0 |
Barcode: |
9780803289512 |
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