Marie - Couverture souple

A sensual and joyful story of desire and independence in 1930s Paris.

Set among the bustling train stations and narrow rues of 1930s Paris, where the threat of war already hangs in the air, Marie is a hypnotically powerful novel about the interior life of a 20th century woman, suffused with exquisite moments of sensual acuity and profound insight.

Marie is happy. She has a husband whom she adores and she takes pleasure in the small things in life the drag of a cigarette, a hotel balcony, the scattering of light across the sea.

But while on holiday, she spots a young man lying on the beach and is instantly drawn to him. Their connection develops into a passionate and intense love affair, opening a window into Marie s untapped desires. As she explores the vibrant immediacy of her yearnings, Marie begins to see her entire world anew.

Madeleine Bourdouxhe was born in Belgium in 1906. La Femme de Gilles (1937) was her first novel. The outbreak of the Second World War interrupted her writing career, and her second novel, Marie, wasn't published until 1943. In the mid-1980s her work was rediscovered, and translated into many languages. A volume of short stories, A Nail, a Rose, first appeared in English in 1989, followed by translations of La Femme de Gilles and Marie. Bourdouxhe died in 1996.