The Greatest Books Since 1900 Written by French Authors
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1 . In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Swann's Way, the first part of A la recherche de temps perdu, Marcel Proust's seven-part cycle, was published in 1913. In it, Proust introduces the themes that run through the entire work. The narr...
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2 . The Stranger by Albert Camus
Since it was first published in English, in 1946, Albert Camus's extraordinary first novel, The Stranger (L'Etranger), has had a profound impact on millions of American readers. Through this story ...
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3 . Journey to the End of The Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Journey to the End of Night is the first novel of Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This semi-autobiographical work describes antihero Ferdinand Bardamu. His surname, Bardamu, is derived from the French word...
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4 . The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Since 1943, the wise little boy from Asteroid B-612 has led children and their adults to deeper understandings of love, friendship, and responsibility. The Little Prince is a cherished story, read ...
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5 . The Plague by Albert Camus
A haunting tale of human resilience in the face of unrelieved horror, Camus' novel about a bubonic plague ravaging the people of a North African coastal town is a classic of twentieth-century liter...
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6 . Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
Memoirs of Hadrian is a novel by the French writer Marguerite Yourcenar about the life and death of Roman Emperor Hadrian. The book was first published in France in French in 1951 as Mémoires d'Had...
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7 . The Counterfeiters by André Gide
The Counterfeiters is a 1925 novel by French author André Gide, first published in Nouvelle Revue Française. With many characters and crisscrossing plotlines, its main theme is that of the original...
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8 . Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre
Sartre's greatest novel — and existentialism's key text — now introduced by James Wood. Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressio...
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9 . The Lover by Marguerite Duras
An international best-seller with more than one million copies in print and a winner of France's Prix Goncourt, The Lover has been acclaimed by critics all over the world since its first publicatio...
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11 . Life, a User's Manual by Georges Perec
Over twenty years ago, Godine published the first English translation of Georges Perec's masterpiece, Life A User's Manual, hailed by the Times Literary Supplement, Boston Globe, and others as "one...
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12 . Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan
Endearing, self-absorbed, seventeen-year-old Cécile is the very essence of untroubled amorality. Freed from the stifling constraints of boarding school, she joins her father—a handsome, still-young...
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13 . Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille
Bataille’s first novel, published under the pseudonym ‘Lord Auch’, is still his most notorious work. In this explicit pornographic fantasy, the young male narrator and his lovers Simone and Marcell...
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14 . Froth on the daydream by Boris Vian
Froth on the Daydream (French: L'Écume des Jours) is a 1947 novel by the French author Boris Vian. It tells the story of a man who marries a woman, who develops an illness that can only be treated ...
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15 . Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire
Guiilaume Apollinaire, a leading figure amongst the young writers and artists in France until his death in 1918, published 'Alcools', his first book of poems, in 1913. With its wide range of verse ...
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16 . Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau
A tragedy about the power of the imagination and the strange, claustrophobic world of childhood. At home, Paul shares a private world with his sister Elisabeth, a world from which parents are tacit...
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17 . Jealousy: A Novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet
La Jalousie is a 1957 novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet. The title of its English editions is Jealousy, but this fails to capture the ambiguity of the French title: "la jalousie" can be translated as "j...
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18 . Platform by Michel Houellebecq
Michel is a civil-servant at the Ministry of Culture. When his father is murdered, Michel takes a leave of absence to go on a package tour to Thailand. Infuriated by the shallow hypocrisy and medio...
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19 . Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, two boys are sent to the country for reeducation, where their lives take an unexpected turn when they meet the beautiful daughter of a local tailor and stumb...
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20 . The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel–part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporar...
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21 . The Fall by Albert Camus
The Fall (French: La Chute) is a philosophical novel written by Albert Camus. First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. Set in Amsterdam, The Fall consists of a series of dr...
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22 . Under Satan's Sun by Georges Bernanos
This new translation marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Georges Bernanos's first novel, Under Satan's Sun, a powerful account of intense spiritual struggle that reflects the author's deeply-fel...
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23 . The Opposing Shore by Julien Gracq
Aldo, a young aristocrat of Orsenna, becomes aware of the delicate balance that preserves the peace between Orsenna and Farghestan, who have, technically, been at war for three hundred years
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24 . The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras
The Ravishing of Lol Stein is a haunting early novel by the author of The Lover. Lol Stein is a beautiful young woman, securely married, settled in a comfortable life—and a voyeur. Returning with h...
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25 . Collected Poems by Arthur Rimbaud
'The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses. . .' Rimbaud was sixteen when he made this famous declaration. By 1886, then thirty-two and an expl...
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26 . One Hundred and One Poems by Paul Verlaine by Paul Verlaine
French poet Paul Verlaine, a major representative of the Symbolist Movement during the latter half of the nineteenth century, was one of the most gifted and prolific poets of his time. Norman Shapi...
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27 . La siesta de M. Andesmas by Marguerite Duras
Monsieur Andesmas, sesenta y ocho años, compra una casa para su hija Valérie. Quiere construir una terraza que domine sobre la llanura, un pueblo, el Mediterráneo. Espera al contratista, que se ha ...
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28 . The Collected Works of Paul Valéry by Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry (French: [pɔl valeʁi]; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues)...
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29 . The Wanderer by Henri Alain-Fournier
Le Grand Meaulnes is the only novel by French author Alain-Fournier. Fifteen-year-old François Seurel narrates the story of his relationship with seventeen-year-old Augustin Meaulnes as Meaulnes se...
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30 . Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau
Impish, foul-mouthed Zazie arrives in Paris from the country to stay with Gabriel, her female-impersonator uncle. All she really wants to do is ride the metro, but finding it shut because of a stri...
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31 . Calligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire
Calligrammes, subtitled Poems of Peace and War 1913-1916, is a collection of poems by Guillaume Apollinaire which was first published in 1918 (see 1918 in poetry). Calligrammes is noted for how the...
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32 . Death on Credit by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
In Death on Credit, Ferdinand, Céline's alter ego, is a doctor in Paris, treating the poor who seldom pay him but take every advantage of his availability. The action is not continuous but goes bac...
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33 . The First Man by Albert Camus
Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet...
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34 . Three plays: The hostage, Crusts, The humiliation of the father by Paul Claudel
Paul Claudel (French: [pɔl klɔdɛl]; 6 August 1868 – 23 February 1955) was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his ...
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35 . The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos
Recounts the life of a young French country priest who grows to understand his provincial parish while learning spiritual humility himself.
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36 . The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir
The Mandarins (French: Les Mandarins) is a 1954 roman à clef by Simone de Beauvoir, for which she won the Prix Goncourt, awarded to the best and most imaginative prose work of the year, in 1954. Th...
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38 . W, or the Memory of Childhood by Georges Perec
W, or the Memory of Childhood (French: W ou le souvenir d'enfance), is a semi-autobiographical work of fiction by Georges Perec, published in 1975. Perec's novel consists of alternating chapters of...
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39 . Viper’s Tangle by François Mauriac
The masterpiece of one of the twentieth century’s greatest Catholic writers, Vipers’ Tangle tells the story of Monsieur Louis, an embittered aging lawyer who has spread his misery to his entire est...
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40 . Arcanum 17 by André Breton
Arcane 17 is a poetic text by André Breton (1896-1966) written from August 20 to October 20 , 19445 during a trip to the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec , on the east coast of Canada , with Elisa Claro ,...
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41 . The First Garden by Anne Hébert
Flora Fontages is a famous Parisian actress who has been in exile from her native Canada for twenty years. When word comes that her long-estranged daughter, Maud, has disappeared in Quebec City, sh...
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42 . Story of O by Pauline Reage
Story of O (French: Histoire d'O, IPA: [istwaʁ do]) is an erotic novel published in 1954 by French author Anne Desclos under the pen name Pauline Réage, and published in French by Jean-Jacques Pauv...
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43 . Blue of Noon by Georges Bataille
Blue of Noon (French: Le Bleu du Ciel) is an erotic novella by Georges Bataille. Although Bataille completed the work in 1935, it was not published until Jean-Jacques Pauvert did so in 1957. (Pauve...
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44 . The Roots of Heaven by Romain Gary
The Roots of Heaven (French: Les Racines du ciel) is a 1956 novel by the Lithuanian-born French writer and WW II aviator, Romain Gary (born Roman Kacew). It received the Prix Goncourt for fiction a...
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45 . The Immoralist by André Gide
The Immoralist (French: L'Immoraliste) is a novel by André Gide, published in France in 1902.
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46 . A Void by Georges Perec
A Void, translated from the original French La Disparition (literally, "The Disappearance"), is a 300-page French lipogrammatic novel, written in 1969 by Georges Perec, entirely without using the l...
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47 . Under Fire by Henri Barbusse
Under Fire: The Story of a Squad (French: Le Feu: journal d'une escouade) by Henri Barbusse (December 1916), was one of the first novels about World War I to be published. Although it is fiction, t...
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48 . Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
Exercises in Style (French: Exercices de style), written by Raymond Queneau, is a collection of 99 retellings of the same story, each in a different style. In each, the narrator gets on the "S" bus...
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49 . Le Diable au corps by Raymond Radiguet
Le Diable au corps (The Devil in the Flesh) is an early 1923 novel by Parisian literary prodigy Raymond Radiguet. The story of a young married woman who has an affair with a sixteen-year-old boy wh...
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52 . The Day of the Dolphin by Robert Merle
The Day of the Dolphin (Un animal doué de raison – lit. A Sentient Animal) is a 1967 science fiction thriller novel by French novelist Robert Merle. The plot concerns dolphins that are trained to ...
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53 . Death Sentence by Maurice Blanchot
This long awaited reprint of a book about which John Hollander wrote: 'A masterful version of one of the most remarkable novels in any language since World War II, ' is the story of the narrator's ...
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54 . Impressions of Africa by Raymond Roussel
The first of Roussel's two major prose works, Impressions of Africa is not, as the title may suggest, a conventional travel account, but an adventure story put together in a highly individual fashi...
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55 . Whatever by Michel Houellebecq
Just thirty, with a well-paid job, no love life and a terrible attitude, the anti-hero of this grim, funny novel smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and writes weird animal stories in his spare t...
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56 . L'Abbé C by Georges Bataille
L'Abbé C (1950) was Georges Bataille's first published novella. It is a work of dark eroticism, centred on the relationship between two twentieth century brothers in a small French village, one of ...
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57 . Strait is the Gate by André Gide
Strait is the Gate (French: La Porte Étroite) is a 1909 French novel written by André Gide. It was translated into English by Dorothy Bussy. It probes the complexities and terrors of adolescence an...
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58 . Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin
Delta of Venus is a book of fifteen short stories by Anaïs Nin published posthumously in 1977—though largely written in the 1940s as erotica for a private collector.In 1994 a film inspired by the b...
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59 . Fantômas by Marcel Allain, Pierre Souvestre
Fantômas (French: [fɑ̃tomas]) is a fictional character created by French writers Marcel Allain (1885–1969) and Pierre Souvestre (1874–1914). One of the most popular characters in the history of Fr...
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60 . The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
The Elegance of the Hedgehog (French: L'Élégance du hérisson) is a novel by the French novelist and philosophy teacher Muriel Barbery. The book follows events in the life of a concierge, Renée Mich...
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61 . Manon des sources by Marcel Pagnol
Marcel Pagnol Manon des sources Après la mort du Bossu, et la vente des Romarins, Manon et sa mère s’installent dans la grotte de Baptistine. Quelques années plus tard, Manon trouve l’occasion de s...
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62 . Things: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec
Things (French Les Choses) is a 1965 novel by Georges Perec, his first.The novel met with popular and critical success and won the Prix Renaudot in 1965.
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65 . Hell by Henri Barbusse
Hell (French: L'Enfer) is Henri Barbusse's second novel, written in 1908, in which the unnamed narrator spies on his fellow house guests through a peephole in his wall.
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66 . Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book by Edmund Dulac
Edmund Dulac (born Edmond Dulac; October 22, 1882 – May 25, 1953) was a French-born, British naturalised magazine illustrator, book illustrator and stamp designer. Born in Toulouse he studied law b...
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67 . Persepolis Two by Marjane Satrapi
The great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor and the daughter of ardent Marxists continues her description of growing up in Tehran, a country plagued by political upheaval and vast contradictions...
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68 . Querelle by Jean Genet
Jean Genet was one of the world’s greatest contemporary dramatists, and his last play, The Screens, is his crowning achievement. It strikes a powerful, closing chord to the formidable theatrical wo...
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69 . Lives Other Than My Own by Emmanuel Carrère
From the acclaimed Emmanuel Carrère, an act of generous imagination that unflinchingly records devastating loss and, equally vividly, the wealth of human solace that follows in its wake In Sri Lank...
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70 . The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
The Phantom of the Opera (French: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in Le Gaulois from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 191...
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71 . Histoire de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff
Babar the Elephant is a very popular French children's fictional character who first appeared in Histoire de Babar by Jean de Brunhoff in 1931 and enjoyed immediate success. An English language ver...
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72 . Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars
At once truly appalling and appallingly funny, Blaise Cendrars's Moravagine bears comparison with Naked Lunch—except that it's a lot more entertaining to read. Heir to an immense aristocratic fortu...
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73 . Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet
'Our Lady of the Flowers', which is often considered to be Genet's masterpiece, was written entirely in the solitude of a prison cell. the exceptional value of the work lies in its ambiguity.
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74 . The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
A historical epic that tells an unusual love story, The News from Paraguay offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of nineteenth-century Paraguay, a largely untouched wilderness where Europeans and North A...
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75 . The Voyeur by Alain Robbe-Grillet
Mathias, the voyeur, returns to the island of his birth and wanders about for several days. When a thirteen-year-old girl is found drowned, murder is suspected. Did Mathias do it?
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76 . Rhinoceros and Other Plays by Eugène Ionesco
Presents three dramatic works by the contemporary French experimental playwright: The Leader, The Future Is in Eggs or It Takes all Sorts to Make a World, and Rhinoceros.
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77 . I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé
This wild and entertaining novel expands on the true story of the West Indian slave Tituba, who was accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, arrested in 1692, and forgotten in jail until the ...
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78 . A Spy In The House Of Love by Anaïs Nin
Beautiful, bored and bourgeoise, Sabina leads a double life inspired by her relentless desire for brief encounters with near-strangers. Fired into faithlessness by a desperate longing for sexual fu...
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79 . Penguin Island by Anatole France
Penguin Island (1908; French: L'Île des Pingouins) is a satirical fictional history by Nobel Prize–winning French author Anatole France.
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80 . I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere by Anna Gavalda
Collects eleven short stories about individuals longing to connect with others.
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81 . Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou
"A man sits in a bar, ruminating on his own failures and conversing with an ensemble of memorable characters that pass in and out of the same space. It’s archetypal stuff, but Mabanckou transforms ...
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82 . Betty Blue: The Story of a Passion by Philippe Djian
BETTY BLUE remains a cult book and film nearly twenty years since its first outing. The extraordinary story of an erotic, doomed love affair has transfixed hundreds of thousands of readers around t...
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83 . Take It Or Leave It by Raymond Federman
Moving freely from past to present and place to place leap-frogging from digression to digression, "Take It or Leave It" recounts the hilarious and amourous adventures of Frenchy, a young man who s...
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85 . Asterix the Gaul by Rene Goscinny
When a Roman Centurion discovers the secret of Getafix's magic potion, Asterix has to intervene to save his druid friend. Simultaneous.
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86 . The Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco
La Cantatrice Chauve (Romanian: Cântăreața Cheală) — translated from French as The Bald Soprano or The Bald Prima Donna — is the first play written by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco.
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87 . The Abyss by Marguerite Yourcenar
The Abyss (French: L'Œuvre au noir) is a novel by the Belgian-French writer Marguerite Yourcenar. Its narrative centers on the life and death of Zeno, a physician, philosopher, scientist and alchem...
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88 . The Horseman on the Roof by Jean Giono
Perhaps no other of his novels better reveals Giono's perfect balance between lyricism and narrative, description and characterization, the epic and the particular, than The Horseman on the Roof. T...
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89 . Thérèse Desqueyroux by François Mauriac
Francois Mauriac's masterpiece and one of the greatest Catholic novels, Therese Desqueyroux is the haunting story of an unhappily married young woman whose desperation drives her to thoughts of mur...
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90 . Double Or Nothing by Raymond Federman
Double or Nothing challenges the way we read fiction and the way we see words, and in the process, gives us back more of our own world and our real dilemmas than we are used to getting.
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92 . The Satin Slipper by Paul Claudel
The Satin Slipper (Le Soulier de satin) is a long play by the French dramatist and poet Paul Claudel. It was written in 1929, but first performed on stage in 1943. Today it is rarely staged because...
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93 . Friday by Michel Tournier
Friday, winner of the 1967 Grand Prix du Roman of the Académie Française, is a sly, enchanting retelling of the legend of Robinson Crusoe by the man the New Yorker calls "France's best and probably...
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94 . Tendrils of Vines by Colette
Tendrils of vines is a collection of news from Colette published in 1908 . Tendrils of vines brings new short biographical origin in which the author expresses his love for nature and the nostal...
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95 . Capital of Pain by Paul Éluard
Capital of Pain, is considered one of the key texts of surrealism. This is the first new translation into English of this work in over 30 years and the only edition available in the English languag...
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96 . The Interrogation by J. M. G. Le Clezio
From the original Atheneum edition jacket, 1964. "J.M.G. Le Clézio, revelation of the literary year" ran the headline of the Paris Express after last year's prizes had been awarded. The Goncourt ju...
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97 . Tropisms by Nathalie Sarraute
"Tropisms" are "movements of which we are hardly cognizant, [they] slip through us on the frontiers of consciousness in the form of undefinable, extremely rapid sensations. They hide behind our ges...
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98 . Furor and Mystery by René Char
Rene Char (1907-1988) was one of France's most respected 20th century poets. Part of the Surrealist group in the late 1920's-1930's, he gradually drifted away from the group. During WWII he joined ...
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99 . Second Thoughts by Michel Butor
Second Thoughts (French: La Modification, 1957) is a novel by Michel Butor. It is the author's most famous work.
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101 . The Diary of Anais Nin, 1931-1934 by Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin (Spanish: [anaˈis ˈnin]; born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell; February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) was an author born to Cuban parents in France, where she was a...
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103 . Mythologies by Roland Barthes
Mythologies is the title of a book by Roland Barthes, published in 1957. It is a collection of essays taken from Les Lettres nouvelles, examining the tendency of contemporary social value systems t...
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104 . The Pure and the Impure by Colette
Colette herself considered The Pure and the Impure her best book, "the nearest I shall ever come to writing an autobiography." This guided tour of the erotic netherworld with which Colette was so i...
