📱 eBook en inglés CONVERSATIONS WITH RILKE

Walking in the Luxembourg Garden, describing encounters with enigmatic diva Eleonora Duse or an irascible Tolstoy: Rainer Maria Rilkes French translator Maurice Betz enjoyed a rare intimacy with the great poet. This account of their collaborative translation of Rilkes only novel brings the reader along on a tour of the glittering cultural scene of interwar Paris.

An elegant, poignant look at the great writers final years, Betzs memoir, sensitively translated by Will Stone, is a portrait of genius, an evocation of a lost world, and a testament to enduring friendship.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Translated by Will Stone.

Maurice Betz (1898-1946), as well as writing poetry and novels, was a prolific translator of Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann. He worked closely with Rilke on the French translations of his works while Rilke was alive, and continued translating the poet into French in the decades following his death. He fought in both World Wars and was made a prisoner in the Second. Shortly after the war, he was found dead in a hotel room in Tours, having asked for an early wake-up call.

Will Stone is a poet, essayist and literary translator of French, Franco-Belgian and German literature. His previous translations include Rilke in Paris, also by Maurice Betz, several works by Stefan Zweig, and poems by Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke, all available from Pushkin Press.