Cover of The Man Sitting in the Corridor

The Man Sitting in the Corridor

One of France's leading literary figures, Marguerite Duras casts a brooding, elegant spell over her readers with her acute portrayals of love: its aphrodisiacal powers and its sweet, inevitable pain. This novella is haunting, erotic, and tragic, with the distinctive evocation that is Duras' own.

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"Ms. Duras's 1980 novella, "The Man Sitting in the Corridor," whose superb English translation by Barbara Bray is only now appearing, was [...] an exercise in the author's progressive distillation of her prose. Here it is so spare that at most several sentences (and once a mere 15 words) occupy an entire page. Thus unencumbered, the rare bits of writing gain resonance, like a lone voice echoing through a tunnel. Moreover, by writing less — and thereby suggesting more — Ms. Duras invests her information with a power unavailable to more copious, if still evocative, forms of literary expression." - Ginger Danto, The New York Times

Audience
adult
Length
short · 48 pages

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