Two by Duras

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French studies at the University
of Guelph.

Alberto Manguel, in choosing to translate Marguerite Duras, is simply
giving voice to the affinity that exists between him and the French
writer. Both write about human relations, about love, about the evil
that most of us harbor and try to control.

Two by Duras brings to the anglophone reader two novellas by Duras,
“The Slut of the Normandy Coast” and “The Atlantic Man.” In
addition, the book contains an interview of Duras by Ana Maria Moix as
well as some musings by Manguel. He speaks on Duras’s fall from grace
in the eyes of the French intelligentsia. In the interview, Moix and
Duras meditate on the meaning of one’s face, discuss autobiography and
the dynamics of the novelist’s text, and reflect on alcoholism, on
telling the truth, on inventing new forms, on critics, and on feminism.

There is no slut in “The Slut of Normandy Coast”—just Duras, her
projects, and her friend Yann, who types as she dictates and shouts at
her before leaving the apartment to see beautiful men. “The Atlantic
Man” tells of a man who walks along the sea, with his dog, while
someone attempts to photograph him. This someone (a woman or Duras)
speaks of love, of presence and absence, of death and permanence.

Two by Duras is the anglophone reader’s passport into the world of
Marguerite Duras.