The Passion according to Renée Vivien

the long version

"In this often poetic and lyrical novel by the revered Catalan poet Maria-Merce Marc ʹal, we are taken on a journey through the multiple, mobile and contradictory life, letters and loves of the fin-de-sie cle Anglo-French writer, Pauline Tarn-Rene e Vivien, as researched and reimagined by two principal narrators - a 1980s Catalan documentary film-maker Sara T. and a 1920s French archaeology scholar and museologist Salomon Reinach - alongside the voices of the various friends, relations, lovers, companions and servants who made her acquaintance at different moments in her life. In the process, we are presented with a compelling reconstruction of the Belle E poque and interwar years in Paris, alongside other key sites in this transformational literary geography - Nice, Bayreuth, Switzerland, Istanbul, and the island of Lesbos - that include often dazzling evocations of other cultural figures and influencers of the age, from Zola to Pierre Louy s and Remy de Gourmont, Liane de Pougy to Mathilde de Morny and Colette, not forgetting the central figure of Natalie Clifford-Barney, the 'Amazone'" -- back cover.