Girl in Paris: A Persian Encounter with the West (Tauris Parke Paperbacks)

New
Paperback
2007
$10.80

At the age of 17, Shusha Guppy left Iran and her family to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. Diving into the unknown - a world of unimagined freedoms and unexplored horizons - Shusha immersed herself in the vibrant artistic life of Paris' Left Bank, where she met Samuel Beckett, Sydney Bechet and Albert Camus and was encouraged to write and record her first songs by Jacques Prevert. As richly embroidered and lyrical as the Persian poetry and music which was so much a part of her heritage, Shusha Guppy's sparkling memoir, the sequel to her acclaimed first memoir, The Blindfold Horse , is simultaneously a vivid portrait of Fifties' Paris, an astute depiction of the confrontation between East and West and a moving account of the pain of exile.

Synopsis

At the age of 17, Shusha Guppy left Iran and her family to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. Diving into the unknown - a world of unimagined freedoms and unexplored horizons - Shusha immersed herself in the vibrant artistic life of Paris' Left Bank, where she met Samuel Beckett, Sydney Bechet and Albert Camus and was encouraged to write and record her first songs by Jacques Prevert. As richly embroidered and lyrical as the Persian poetry and music which was so much a part of her heritage, Shusha Guppy's sparkling memoir, the sequel to her acclaimed first memoir, "The Blindfold Horse", is simultaneously a vivid portrait of Fifties' Paris, an astute depiction of the confrontation between East and West and a moving account of the pain of exile.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Published: 30 Apr 2007
ISBN 10: 1845113802
ISBN 13: 9781845113803

Media Reviews

'A tender, delightful memoir of youthful idealism and vulnerability. Wholly absorbing.' Colin Thubron She was an observer, sharp-eyed with a memory that she brings to us like a gift. Her impressions weave with perfection, one tale smoothing silkily into another. She is like a friend, relating with great excitement, a glorious day's events. Her tale is shot with strands of Persian hues, lush poems learnt as a child and mysticism. More than anything else, Guppy is able to take us to the Paris she found and lived to love: her word-drawings of the Latin Quarter, of the bustle, the innocence and arrogance of life in the Left Bank are unforgettable. Sunday Times Everyone should have a friend like Shusha Guppy. Someone who has drunk life at the richest springs, has a reporter's knack for observation and a novelist's skill for story-telling... this is writing at its most beautiful and evocative of time, place and emotion. Polly Samson, Daily Mail Guppy's elegant prose style serves her bohemian life-story well... an enchanting memoir. Time Out A welcome and fascinating read... shot through with both humour and melancholy. Financial Times She writes artlessly and vividly, as though she has forgotten nothing. Angela Lambert, The Independent The charm of the book is that it might be about almost any foreign student's eye-opening life in Paris in the Fifties - with the added fascinating of the memories of Persia that crop up at every turn. Sunday Telegraph Her years in Paris were magical and her account is like a glass of Champagne, light, festive, and invigorating. The Mail on Sunday There is little of French life and foreign expatriates that she did not explore and chronicle, with a quick eye for the revealing details and an apparently bottomless good humour...highly readable. Caroline Moorehead, New Statesman A tender portrait of Fifties' Paris, it is full of memorable characters and infused with lyricism. Christie Hickman, Woman's Journal ...fluent, intelligent, charming, affectionate... Anthony Rudolf, Jewish Quarterly It gloriously recalls the fevered excitements of which one is capable at that age. Shusha Guppy is a plucky and self-effacing guide. Catholic HeraldTHE TIMESHeinrich Heine, Henry James and Ernest Hemingway all wrote memoirs of their time in Paris. This is in the same league -Ross LeckieSUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Author Bio

Shusha Guppy was born and brought up in Iran. She moved to Paris when she was 17 to study Oriental languages and Philosophy at the Sorbonne. London editor of The Paris Review, she is a well-known journalist, musician and award-winning author of The Blindfold Horse (Tauris Parke Paperbacks) and The Secret of Laughter (I.B.Tauris).