La Batarde
Violette LeDuc author Derek Coltman translator Deborah Levy editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Dalkey Archive Press
Published:10th Aug '23
£16.00
Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.
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An obsessive and revealing self-portrait of a remarkable woman humiliated by the circumstances of her birth and by her physical appearance, La Bâtarde relates Violette Leduc’s long search for her own identity through a series of agonizing and passionate love affairs with both men and women.
When first published, La Bâtarde earned Violette Leduc comparisons to Jean Genet for the frank depiction of her sexual escapades and immoral behavior. A confession that contains portraits of several famous French authors, this book is more than just a scintillating memoir—like that of Henry Miller, Leduc’s brilliant writing style and attention to language transform this autobiography into a work of art.
“Notoriety aside, Leduc is first and foremost a first-rate writer. Not someone who just tells a provocative story and is unafraid to reveal the most offensive parts of her personality and of her experience, but someone who is in love with words, struggles with them, wrestles with language, dies for adjectives, is tortured by her search for le mot juste.”—Women's Review of Books
“There are a number of similarities, both literary and personal, between Violette Leduc and Jean Genet. . . . Both are completely indifferent to conventional moral values, and describe their thefts, homosexual exploits or black market profiteering with a strange innocence that is only partly the result of a deliberate pose.”—Times Literary Supplement
“The experiences Leduc records exemplify, without intellectualizing, many of the ideas of Sartre, Genet and Simone de Beauvoir. Her insights are sparks thrown off by the striking of her senses and emotions. They define without structuring.”—The New Leader
“La Batarde is a success based not on wit, wisdom or literary grace but on the unpleasant pleasure many people find in watching someone else behave shamelessly.”—Time
ISBN: 9781628974577
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
672 pages