Dirk Leyman: Passage Parijs, in het spoor van de schrijvers
Dirk Leyman
Pelckmans, 2025
€39,50
Passage Paris makes the heart of every Parisian lover beat faster. In thirty exuberant stories, Dirk Leyman captures the atmosphere of an eternally alluring City of Light. “I only have to step on certain sensitive spots in Paris with my heel, and memories burst forth like a shower of sparks,” as Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano once wrote. And that is precisely what happens in Passage Paris. Leyman brings countless literary locations to life and extracts their secrets. He takes you on a journey through the Paris of renowned French and international writers, philosophers, and cult authors. From Charles Baudelaire to Michel Houellebecq, from Françoise Sagan to Georges Perec, from the Surrealists to Colette and James Baldwin.
How lonely was the young Paul Auster in 1970s Paris? In which luxury hotel did George Orwell work as a dishwasher? And how much resistance did Marguerite Yourcenar encounter as the first woman in the Académie française? Leyman’s idiosyncratic journey takes us through a city that pulsates day and night, where striking literary histories are readily available on every street corner, avenue, and boulevard. He allows the sensations of 20th-century literary Paris, in particular, to erupt from every page. The lavishly illustrated Passage Paris, with its in-depth, meandering essays, abecedariums, and sophisticated address guides, offers a veritable literary promenade through the Ville Lumière, following in the footsteps of the greatest authors.
Dirk Leyman is a literary journalist, interviewer, and essayist. He has worked for the newspaper De Morgen for twenty-five years, publishing author interviews, reports, and reviews. He writes for numerous other publications, primarily on Dutch and French literature, travel literature, and the book world. IN DUTCH!
ISBN: 9789463103978
