Novel
Last Nights of Paris
Les Dernières Nuits de Paris
Philippe Soupault · 1928
Synopsis
A nameless narrator wanders the streets of Paris at night, in search of what eludes him. He becomes attached to Georgette, a mysterious prostitute, who draws him into an underground world where the city seems ready to give up its secrets. Around her gravitate a sailor, a dog and a gang with obscure activities, and a murder disturbs these nocturnal wanderings, of which Paris becomes the true character.
Context
The novel appeared in 1928, two years after the author's exclusion from the Surrealist group. Nadja, by André Breton, appeared the same year, and critics have often compared the two books, which seek the secrets of Paris through a female figure; Georgette appears there less idealised than Breton's heroine. The American poet William Carlos Williams produced an English translation as early as 1929, reissued in 2008 by Exact Change.
Who it is for
A short novel, made up of nocturnal wanderings more than of plot, to be read as a walk through Paris at the end of the twenties.
Prizes and reception
Gallimard reissued it in 1997 in its paperback series L'Imaginaire, nearly seventy years after its publication.
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