We'll Never Have Paris

How well does the American and British romanticized dream of Paris fit-in with the lived-in Paris of real Parisians? A new collection of essays seeks an answer. In 1948 Robert Doisneau took a picture of a young woman working at her typewriter on the banks of the Seine. With her stylish sunglasses and short skirt, she seems to epitomise Left Bank bohemian chic. In fact she turns out to be the English author Emma Smith, composing her debut novel during a heatwave. We'll Never Have Paris taps into the enduring fascination with a partly fantasised literary Paris (that of the Lost Generation, Joyce, Beckett and Shakespeare & Company) which also happens to be a largely Anglophone construct -- one which the Eurostar and Brexit only seem to have exacerbated in recent years. Andrew Gallix, who teaches at the Sorbonne, has brought together many of the most talented and adventurous writers from the UK, Ireland, USA and Australia to explore this theme through fiction and essays, in order to build up a (real or fictitious, flattering or disparaging) portrait of Paris as viewed by English speakers today. The book includes Deborah Levy, Tom McCarthy, Brian Dillon, Joanna Walsh, Eley Williams, Claire-Louise Bennett and some 70 other contributors.