Reading Writing

This first English-language edition of En lisant en ecrivant will mark a turning point in the public reception of Julien Gracq. Here he emerges as the ideal critic, a reader who accompanies himself in his reading like a ＂polite third party.＂
Every reader is a potential writer and every writer is a reader in actuality. Reading Writing is a subjective history of fiction and poetry and a personal meditation on the links between literature and two visual arts: painting and cinema. Gracq’s poetics is founded upon the basic acts of reading and writing and on the relationship between the writer and his language.
Born in 1910 in historic Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, where he lives today, Julien Gracq is one of France’s eminent postwar writers. His oeuvre includes essays, criticism, journalism, and novels. Gracq is a majestic, retiring, and misunderstood figure in French literature. He refused the Goncourt Prize when it was awarded to him in 1951.