Six Films (Inpatient Press / Mercurial Editions)

The English-language debut of a beautiful and beguiling cycle of experimental texts by the legendary Marguerite Duras.

In the late 1970s, Marguerite Duras embarked on an experimental journey to expand the boundaries of writing and film. For Duras, writing need not be text on a page nor cinema merely images on a screen. Six Films is the result of her efforts to redefine the two arts in order to create a hybrid work. Taking narration, voiceovers, and dialogue from six of her films, Duras re-envisions them as extended prose poems and monologues, tangling with self-identity, personal relationships, colonialism, and expression as the celluoid images recede and the text becomes the film itself. Now available for the first time in English, Six Films is a document of an artist at the apex of her creative prowess.

Marguerite Duras was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Born in French Indochina, she moved to France to study mathematics and political science. During World War II, she joined the French Resistance and emerged as a key figure in the experimental Nouveau Roman movement of the 1950s. Her breakthrough international success came with The Lover, a semi-autobiographical novel that won the Prix Goncourt. She made significant contributions to cinema, writing the acclaimed screenplay for Hiroshima Mon Amour. Known for her minimalist style and exploration of desire, memory, and colonialism, Duras produced over seventy works across multiple genres, establishing herself as one of France's most influential literary voices.