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Full Description
'I owe Betz infinite gratitude...a first-rate poet, a creative spirit, and a friend to all creative spirits...an ornament to literary France...an artist with words, lovable and worthy of love' - Thomas Mann
'Maurice Betz is one of those artists whose importance only fully appears after they have disappeared' - Marcel Aymé
Walking in the Luxembourg Garden, describing encounters with enigmatic diva Eleonora Duse or an irascible Tolstoy: Rainer Maria Rilke's French translator Maurice Betz enjoyed a rare intimacy with the great poet. This account of their collaborative translation of Rilke's only novel brings the reader along on a tour of the glittering cultural scene of interwar Paris.
An elegant, poignant look at the great writer's final years, Betz's memoir, sensitively translated by Will Stone, is a portrait of genius, an evocation of a lost world, and a testament to enduring friendship.
Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.
Translated by Will Stone.
Maurice Betz (1898-1946), as well as writing poetry and novels, was a prolific translator of Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann. He worked closely with Rilke on the French translations of his works while Rilke was alive, and continued translating the poet into French in the decades following his death. He fought in both World Wars and was made a prisoner in the Second. Shortly after the war, he was found dead in a hotel room in Tours, having asked for an early wake-up call.
Will Stone is a poet, essayist and literary translator of French, Franco-Belgian and German literature. His previous translations include Rilke in Paris, also by Maurice Betz, several works by Stefan Zweig, and poems by Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke, all available from Pushkin Press.
Contents
Introduction
Translator's Note
On the Discovery of Rilke
Chapter I. The Book of Images, Civilisation, 500,000 shells
Chapter II. Dada, Malraux, Cocteau, Harden
Chapter III. First Letters from Muzot
Chapter IV. Paris, the French language, Berg-sur Irchel
Chapter V. Émile-Paul, Jaloux, Benveniste
Chapter VI. Les Cahiers du mois, Sternheim, Valéry
Chapter VII. The Luxembourg, the Hôtel Biron, Muzot
Chapter VIII. Mornings Working on the Notebooks of Malte
Chapter IX. The Lost Pages of the Notebooks of Malte
Chapter X. In the Environs of the Princess
Chapter XI. Lou Andreas-Salomé, Gorki, Tolstoy
Chapter XII. Rodin, de Max, Isadora Duncan
Chapter XIII. Roses, Cats and Dogs
Chapter XIV. Bettina von Arnim, Lina Poletti and Eleonora Duse
Chapter XV. Giraudoux, Gide, Max Picard
Chapter XVI. Spain, Provence, Venice
Chapter XVII. "Fate has these holes where we disappear"
Chapter XVIII. Malte, Vergers, Reconnaissance à Rilke
Chapter XIX. The Last Summer of Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke Alive
Maurice Betz—A Poet and Literary Translator in Paris
Translator's Acknowledgments
Notes on the text
