Mirabelle Pickers

by Jacques Réda, Jennie Feldman (Translation)

"Indisputably one of the most invigorating French writers."—John Taylor, Paths to Contemporary French Literature

 

 

 

Jacques Réda chooses the height of the plum-picking season to revisit – on an old motorbike – his home town in Lorraine, north-eastern France. The fragrant allure of mirabelles introduces a colourful mix of old acquaintances renewed in these five days and vividly remembered places that have shaped a lifetime’s writing.

 

With its reflections, often whimsical, on the passing of the years, and its varied motifs – the plums, the provincial stillness, the toy soldiers of his childhood, ‘the astonishing existence of others’ first discovered as a love-struck schoolboy – this has few rivals as a portrayal of town life in la France profonde, written with tenderness and humour.

 

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Jacques Réda was a French poet, jazz critic, and flâneur. He was awarded the Prix Valery Larbaud in 1983, and was chief editor of the Nouvelle Revue Française from 1987 to 1996.