French Lit Book Club - André Breton

The French Lit Book Club is an English-language book club hosted at the French Library. We read and discuss Francophone works in translation so English speakers can discover the rich world of Francophone literature. 

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, December 8, from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM.

We will be discussing André Breton’s 1928 autobiography Nadja, one of the defining works of the French surrealist movement, an energetic autobiographical novel that is at once both a tumultuous romance story and an initiation into the surrealism of everyday life.

Publisher’s Description

"In Paris, during the fall of 1926, André Breton met a young woman from the provinces who called herself Nadja because, she said, “in Russian it’s the beginning of the word for hope, and because it’s only the beginning.” Their love affair was brief, intense, and intensely self-conscious. They both talked exuberantly of the book that Breton would make out of their days and nights. And indeed a year later (after Nadja was institutionalized and Breton had moved on to other love affairs) he began to write Nadja—a book of memory and analysis taking its cue in part from Freud’s case studies, but also a book of ingeniously intercut images, drawing on Surrealist ideas to portray a soul whose very way of being approaches, in Breton’s words, “the extreme limit of the Surrealist aspiration.”

Please read the book in its entirety and come ready to discuss with an open heart! The French Lit Book Club is a space for readers of all backgrounds. Previous familiarity with French literature or French language is not required. The discussion will be in English.

Options for purchasing the book:  Brookline Booksmith | Trident Booksellers | Harvard Book Store (order ahead)