Paris 1935

Jean Follain (1903–71) was born in Canisy, Normandy. After studying law at Caen, he worked as a judge while pursuing a literary career. He published several poetry collections, including Exister (1947) and Espaces d’instants (1971), as well as prose works about places, Paris (1935), Canisy (1942) and Chef-lieu (1950). Follain knew Éluard and Aragon and was a close friend of Max Jacob. He is often linked with the poets Francis Ponge, Eugène Guillevic and Philippe Jaccottet.

‘Kathleen Shields’s translation of Paris 1935, the first complete English edition, is an incentive to rediscover and celebrate a poet of subtle, if often devastating, lyrics and prose … a marvellous addition to the literature of a mythic city.’ – Beverley Bie Brahic, Times Literary Supplement‘Within Follain’s diorama, thirty-two individual scenes are divided not only by the usual places (‘Department Stores’, ‘Cemeteries’, ‘The Left Bank’), but people (‘Girls’, ‘Women’) as well as the more abstract (‘Solitude’, ‘Paris Spirits’, ‘The Elements’). They do not trace the terrain of a standard map but one where the eye and the mind lead each other gloriously astray with no fear of becoming lost …What makes this such a jewel-like niche within literature is the sense we are being told part of an epic more than travelogue as we are guided through the city. Somewhere, above the buildings and parks, looking in through windows at lovers and quarrels, is someone who views every scenario with an innate understanding that bad and good, Paris simply would not be without each exposed human fragment.’ – Tomoé Hill, 3:AM