Paris Metro Tales

Description

Following on from Helen Constantine's hugely successful Paris Tales, the twenty-two short stories included in More Metro Tales take the reader on an fascinating journey around Paris by metro. The journey begins at the Gare du Nord, stops at twenty underground stations along the way, and ends at Lamarck-Caulaincourt. Some of these stories actually take place in the metro itself, but most are to be found when you emerge above ground. They range from the 15th-century account of the miraculous Saint Genevieve, patron saint of Paris, through tales by favourite writers such as Zola, Simenon, and Maupassant, to Martine Delerm's evocation of the last hours of Modigliani's mistress, Jeanne Hebuterne. Gerard de Nerval evokes the thriving, bustling market in Les Halles in the 1850s; Colette recounts her involvement in a traffic accident near the Opera; Boulanger describes a blackly funny experience in Pere Lachaise. Each story is illustrated with a black-and-white photograph and there is a map and suggested itinerary round the metro system. Readers will find familiar and unfamiliar writers here, but all are masterly writers of the short story and each evokes a different aspect of this endlessly intriguing and much-loved city, whether the traveller is on the metro or at home sitting in an armchair.

Reviews

more than a collection of stories. It is an evocation of a millieu - The Tablet a richly varied collection of stories that will inspire a mix of thoughts and emotions - Bookgeeks.co.uk Constantine is an excellent translator - Time Out brilliant anthology -Conde Nast Traveller

Author description

Helen Constantine taught languages in schools until 2000, when she became a full-time translator. She has published two volumes of translated stories, Paris Tales and French Tales, and is currently editing a series of City Tales for Oxford University Press. She has translated Mademoiselle de Maupin by Theophile Gautier and Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos for Penguin. She is married to the writer David Constantine and with him edits the international magazine Modern Poetry in Translation.

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION; Gare du Nord; Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre; Summer Rain; A Little Accident; If it were Sunday; Facino Cane; Rue des Larmes; Story; There or Elsewhere; Saint Genevieve; Expomodigliani.com; Minuet; Snow; La Halle; Confronting the Present; The Cab; The Little Restaurant at Ternes; Romance in the Metro; The Neighbour in the Rue de Jarente; The Landlady; La Butte Montmartre; NOTES ON THE METRO; NOTES ON THE STORIES; NOTES ON THE AUTHORS; SELECTED FURTHER READING; PUBLISHER'S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; MAP OF METRO