A Girl in Paris: A Persian Encounter with the West (Tauris Parke Paperbacks) - Softcover

Guppy, Shusha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845113802 ISBN 13: 9781845113803

Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2007

Synopsis

At the age of 17, Shusha Guppy left Iran and her family to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. Diving into the unknown--a world of unimagined freedoms and unexplored horizons--Shusha immersed herself in the vibrant artistic life of Paris' Left Bank, where she met Samuel Beckett, Sydney Bechet, and Albert Camus and was encouraged to write and record her first songs by Jacques Prévert. As richly embroidered and lyrical as the Persian poetry and music that was so much a part of her heritage, Shusha Guppy's sparkling memoir, the sequel to her acclaimed first memoir The Blindfold Horse, is simultaneously a vivid portrait of 1950s Paris, an astute depiction of the confrontation between East and West, and a moving account of the pain of exile.

About this title

About the Author

Shusha Guppy was born and brought up in Iran. London editor of The Paris Review, she is a well-known journalist, musician and award-winning author of The Blindfold Horse (Tauris Parke Paperbacks) and The Secret of Laughter (I.B.Tauris).

Review

*Shusha Guppy's A Girl In Paris is simple, poignant and brave. She reminds us of our shared humanity, and the ways by which imagination, and what goes by the name culture, can create a space where the limitations of nationality, religion, gender, class and creed no longer matter.*--Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran “She was an observer, sharp-eyed with a memory that she brings to us like a gift. Her impressions weave with perfection, one tale smoothing silkily into another. She is like a friend, relating with great excitement, a glorious day’s events. Her tale is shot with strands of Persian hues, lush poems learnt as a child and mysticism. More than anything else, Guppy is able to take us to the Paris she found and lived to love: her word-drawings of the Latin Quarter, of the bustle, the innocence and arrogance of life in the Left Bank are unforgettable.*--Sunday Times

“Everyone should have a friend like Shusha Guppy. Someone who has drunk life at the richest springs, has a reporter’s knack for observation and a novelist’s skill for story-telling... this is writing at its most beautiful and evocative of time, place and emotion.”--Polly Samson, Daily Mail

“Guppy’s elegant prose style serves her bohemian life-story well... an enchanting memoir.”--Time Out “A welcome and fascinating read...shot through with both humour and melancholy.*--Financial Times

“She writes artlessly and vividly, as though she has forgotten nothing.”--Angela Lambert, The Independent

“The charm of the book is that it might be about almost any foreign student’s eye-opening life in Paris in the Fifties – with the added fascinating of the memories of Persia that crop up at every turn.”--Sunday Telegraph

“Her years in Paris were magical and her account is like a glass of Champagne, light, festive, and invigorating.”--The Mail on Sunday

“There is little of French life and foreign expatriates that she did not explore and chronicle, with a quick eye for the revealing details and an apparently bottomless good humour...highly readable.”--Caroline Moorehead, New Statesman

“A tender portrait of Fifties’ Paris, it is full of memorable characters and infused with lyricism.”--Christie Hickman, Woman’s Journal

“...fluent, intelligent, charming, affectionate...”--Anthony Rudolf, Jewish Quarterly

“It gloriously recalls the fevered excitements of which one is capable at that age. Shusha Guppy is a plucky and self-effacing guide.”--Catholic Herald “Heinrich Heine, Henry James and Ernest Hemingway all wrote memoirs of their time in Paris. This is in the same league.” –The Times (UK) “A delightful account of life as an immigrant in an adopted city, juxtaposed with exotic memories of Persia, and Guppy has a talent for creating a colourful and lyrical portrait of life in the Left Bank.” –Sunday Telegraph (UK) “An intelligent and elegant book.” –Daily Mail (UK)

*[A Girl in Paris]...is there for all to envy.*-- Sarah Searight, The Middle East in London

About this edition

• Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1845113802
• ISBN 13: 9781845113803
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288