I've had this book for a number of years. It was published in 1986 and I think I got it from Daedalus Books. Daedalus Books handles remaindered books and they put out a thick newsprint catalog that was very dangerous. Now they are online. I'm in danger again. Anyway, I was emptying some boxes and it jumped into my hand. I had started it years ago but didn't finish it. It's funny how sometimes you aren't ready for a book and other times you are. I was ready this time.

Marguerite Duras was a French novelist and screenplay witer (Hiroshima, Mon Amour.) This is a memoir of her experiences at the end of WWII. (She was part of the French resistance under Françoise Mitterand.) Her stories capture the uncertainty of life as the war ends and the people return from the front and from the concentration camps. The time in between war and not war. The time of displaced people. The time as one order ends but the new order hasn't quite begun.

Marguerite Duras (1914-1996)

Marguerite Duras