Therese and Isabelle - Softcover

Violette Leduc

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0956808212 ISBN 13: 9780956808219

Publisher: Salammbo Press, 2012

Synopsis

"I'm trying to express as exactly, as minutely as possible the sensations of physical love. There's something here that a woman can understand. I hope this won't appear more scandalous than the thoughts of Molly Bloom at the end of Joyce's Ulysses. Every sincere psychological analysis deserves to be heard, I think." Violette Leduc Charged with metaphors, alternating with precise descriptions of sensations and human relationships, 'Therese and Isabelle' was censored by its publisher in France in 1954, first published in a truncated version in 1966 and not until 2000 in its uncensored edition, as Violette Leduc intended. For the first time in a new English translation, here is the unabridged text of 'Therese and Isabelle'.

About this title

About the Author

Admired by Jean Genet, Nathalie Sarraute and Albert Camus, Violette Leduc (1907-1972) was championed by Simone de Beauvoir when she published her scandalous autobiography La Batarde (1964). Like 'Therese and Isabelle', many of her audacious novels are largely inspired by her life. Her vibrant and lyrical prose continues to fascinate new generations of writers around the world.

Review

"Therese and Isabelle is written with unflinching sincerity and Leduc's progressive attitude and experimental style confirm it as one of the greatest examples of French-language erotic literature." Olivia Heal, TLS "But if the uncensored Therese and Isabelle reads like a fever-dream, to many it represents a long-awaited panacea." Thea Lenarduzzi, Literary Review "So here we have extraordinary writing about sex; and, more importantly, about love, and the way it makes us feel." Nicholas Lezard, Guardian "Thunderbolts of illicit love. A classy new translation of Leduc's masterpiece on the tyranny of love." Independent "Reading Leduc is like discovering a whole new nervous system." Deborah Levy "Lesbian story ban is lifted." Observer "Violette's prose, hirsute and grating as always, throws itself into faces more spiritedly than today's provocateurs, and above all more authentically. The reticence and languor of Therese and Isabelle renews an erotic tradition that today has become banal." Liberation "Perhaps her most sulphurous novel. But who's better at describing the first innocence of desire, the beauty of clandestine and shared love, the force of female tenderness?" Matricule des Anges "This unabridged version restores, breathless, the intimate crescendo of an erotic journey, the murmur of each emotion. A woman's body discovers sensuality under the pen of a writer who's given her flesh to her writing." Magazine Litteraire

Edition details

• Publisher: Salammbo Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0956808212
• ISBN 13: 9780956808219
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 110