The Paris Trilogy

'This is valuable writing. It has immense vitality. You will encounter a female narrator whose direct and bright-eyed stare at the world, and her self, is without shame or faux modesty. At the same time, it is also a deep study of existence, at various ages and stages in life.'
— Deborah Levy

'Swimming is a dreamy, bruised, and carnal book that pretty much no American would write and pretty much every American will thrill to read. Schneck’s “discovery of her body, at the age of fifty” is our encounter with an entrancing mind.'
— Lauren Collins

From celebrated author Colombe Schneck, in her first translation into English, The Paris Trilogy is three semi-autobiographical takes on a woman’s life, starting with Seventeen, progressing with Friendship, and then Swimming: A Love Story. Exploring questions of sexuality, bodily autonomy, femininity, friendship and loss, The Paris Trilogy is a moving meditation on a lifelong journey to reclaim the female body, accepting it for all its faults and learning to celebrate its strength.

The Paris Trilogy is translated into English by award-winning translators Natasha Lehrer and Lauren Elkin.

‘This is valuable writing. It has immense vitality. You will encounter a female narrator whose direct and bright-eyed stare at the world, and herself, is without shame or faux modesty. At the same time, it is also a deep study of existence, at various ages and stages in life.’ 
  Deborah Levy

‘The ‘movements’ of The Paris Trilogy thrum with life, sparkle with insight. It was an exhilarating read. I’ve never encountered a more perfect depiction of how the world shrinks when you understand that you’re a ‘girl’, rather than a ‘person’.’ 

Natasha Brown
‘Colombe Schneck writes with bracing intelligence and lucidity; she sees the world, and herself, with hard won clarity. A brave, beautiful, uncommonly tender book about love, death, sex and survival.’ Katie Kitamura
‘Seventeen mines a trauma all too common for women and is published at a time when France has just enshrined abortion rights in their constitution. I found it a tale of frank retrospection, a mature woman looking back on her naive self with love and respect. It is immensely readable and still sadly relevant. Give it to every young woman you know.’ 
  Monique Roffey
‘Whether she’s writing about passion or perfecting the front crawl, there’s a frankness to Schneck’s meditations on womanhood – crisply translated here by Lauren Elkin and Natasha Lehrer – that is electrifying.’
  Observer
Schneck, translated by Lauren Elkin and Natasha Lehrer, also shares Ernaux’s plain style: simultaneously intimate and detached. New Statesman

The author of eleven books of fiction and non-fiction, Colombe Schneck has received prizes from the Académie Française, Madame Figaro and the Society of French Writers, as well as having been short-listed for the Renaudot, Femina, and Interallié prizes.

The recipient of scholarships from the Villa Medicis in Rome and the Institut Français, as well as a Stendhal grant which allows French writers to do research and write abroad, she also spent fifteen years as a broadcaster for Canal Plus, France TV and Radio France. She is currently working on a novel about the chic, picture-perfect Swiss summer camp where she spent her holidays as a kid, and the grim secret of how it destroyed two of its children.

She was born in Paris in 1966 where she still lives, is a graduate of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and Université de Paris II with a degree in Public Law.

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