In Praise of Paris

'Paris has a knack for creating miniature myths about the objects and procedures of daily life - elegies for an old metro ticket. Everything that vanishes here seems assured to find its memorialist, like the ticket that the main character in The Wages of Fear, played by Yves Montand, keeps with him in the wilds of South America because it is a "Nord-Sud", the name of the private company that owned the present-day Line 13 until around 1930 - an already distant past in Clouzot's film - and the trace of which remains, even today, in the wall tiles of certain stations.'

In this exquisite collection of essays by Mael Renouard, Paris past and present, in remembrance and under playful gaze, on promenades and through a flaneur's musing, unfolds with gentleness and melancholy, humour and erudition.

This work is translated from the French, Eloge de Paris (Payot & Rivages, Paris, 2019).