French Tales

by Helen Constantine

Fiction is much more enlightening about a country and its people than are statistics, and if we want to find out and understand what a nation is really like, we must read its literature. In French Tales, Helen Constantine offers a panoramic view of French society and culture as seen through
its short fiction, ranging through all twenty-two regions of France and featuring the work of an engaging collection of writers.

Here are stories as varied as the regions of France themselves--dramatic, tragic, comic, poetic, ghostly, satirical. Readers will find both famous and little-known writers--among them Guy de Maupassant, Emile Zola, Daniel Boulanger, Didier Daeninckx, and Colette--and will wander the country from
Provence and Alsace to Ile-de-France and Normandy. The themes are timeless--marriage and the dealings between the sexes; the nature of friendship; the misery and the memory of war--and the stories themselves reflect the rich ethnic diversity of France. Thus, Christian Garcin's story set in Lille has
Flemish associations; Prosper M?rim?e's Mateo Falcone, about an honor killing in Corsica, is in many respects more Italian than French; and Marcel Aym?'s story about Arbi, an Arab in Paris living at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, illustrates only too well the plight of many North Africans who settled
in the larger cities--Paris and Marseille especially.

Following the model of the highly successful Paris Tales, also translated by Helen Constantine, each story is illustrated with a striking photograph and there is a map indicating the position of the French regions. There is an introduction and notes to accompany the stories and a selection of
further readings.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0199217483
• ISBN13: 9780199217489
• Release Date: November 2008
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 7.5"