Published by Mercure de France 1968, Condition: Good. French
"READING MAKES IMMIGRANTS OF US ALL. IT TAKES US AWAY FROM HOME, BUT MORE IMPORTANT, IT FINDS HOMES FOR US EVERYWHERE."
Jean Rhys was born in 1890 on the Carribean island of Dominica, a white descendant of slave owners. She left at the age of sixteen to travel to England for her education before moving rootlessly around Europe with the first of her three husbands. Her bad temper, heavy drinking and general tempestuousness followed her throughout her entire life and seeped into much of her work. She became well known for being extremely irascible and temperamental to be around but remained critically admired with many friends and supporters throughout her life. During her older years she lived in Hampstead, London with Jazz singer George Melley and his then wife who said living with her was “like having Johnny Rotten in the house.” Although the collection of stories Rive Gauche garnered her relative literary success in Paris during her younger years, the outbreak of the war in 1936 halted her writing career and she disappeared from public view, only resurfacing when the BBC approached her to do a voice over of her novel Good Morning, Midnight. Rhys then went on to write her most famous novel Wide Sargasso Sea, published when she was seventy six years old.
To read more click here to read our blogpost on Jean Rhys.