The Lover
Book - 1985
An international best-seller with more than one million copies in print and a winner of France's Prix Goncourt, The Lover has been acclaimed by critics all over the world since its first publication in 1984.
Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras's childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France's colonial empire, and its representation in the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts.
Long unavailable in hardcover, this edition of The Lover includes a new introduction by Maxine Hong Kingston that looks back at Duras's world from an intriguing new perspective--that of a visitor to Vietnam today.
(With an introduction by Maxine Hong Kingston; translated from the French by Barbara Bray.)
Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras's childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France's colonial empire, and its representation in the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts.
Long unavailable in hardcover, this edition of The Lover includes a new introduction by Maxine Hong Kingston that looks back at Duras's world from an intriguing new perspective--that of a visitor to Vietnam today.
(With an introduction by Maxine Hong Kingston; translated from the French by Barbara Bray.)
Publisher:
New York : Pantheon Books, 1985, c1984.
Edition:
1st American ed.
ISBN:
9780375700521
0375700528
0375700528
Branch Call Number:
FICTION
Characteristics:
117 p. ;,21 cm.
Alternative Title:
Amant


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MissSherbetXO
Jun 09, 2014
Suddenly, all at once, she knows, knows that he doesn't understand her, that he never will, that he lacks the power to understand such perverseness. And that he can never move fast enough to catch her.

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Add a CommentThis is a story about a girl, who cried and drowned the whole world...
The movie is much better than the novel.
I think I need to see the movie to appreciate this book. I picked it up because I was traveling in Cambodia at the time and was in the area the film was made.
The writing is choppy and the story feels like an adolescent bad dream. There are several limp plot lines and not enough context for Indochina society during the time in which story is set. The book is a morass of tragedy an madness. I was frustrated reading this novella and feel I was duped by the reputation of the author.
French writer Marguerite Duras's slim, sexy novel about the love affair between a young French girl and an older Chinese man, set in Indochina. Filmed in 1992. Duras also wrote the screenplay for "Hiroshima, Mon Amour."
It is a story of a young neglected girl and her odd relationship with an older man. It is written in a way you would remember your own past, so at first it was hard to follow but you’ll get used to it. Almost everyone in the story is nameless which is strange. Overall I liked it.