Description:

Elliot Paul, an American journalist, first walked into rue de la Huchette in the summer of 1923. 'There,' he wrote, 'I found Paris.' His biography of the street brings to life a cast of charaters, from the stately M. de Malancourt to l'Hibou the tramp, from the culturally precocious Hyacinthe to a bevy of prostitutes. Their friendships and enmities, culture and way of life are woven into a tapestry as compelling as a novel. Yet as the threat of the Second World War grows and the political polarisation between right and left intensifies, it endows their quiet, heroic lives with a tragic poignancy. The Last Time I Saw Paris is one of the great portraits of an unforgettable city.Elliot Paul, an American journalist, first walked into rue de la Huchette in the summer of 1923. 'There,' he wrote, 'I found Paris.' His biography of the street brings to life a cast of charaters, from the stately M. de Malancourt to l'Hibou the tramp, from the culturally precocious Hyacinthe to a bevy of prostitutes. Their friendships and enmities, culture and way of life are woven into a tapestry as compelling as a novel. Yet as the threat of the Second World War grows and the political polarisation between right and left intensifies, it endows their quiet, heroic lives with a tragic poignancy. The Last Time I Saw Paris is one of the great portraits of an unforgettable city. ** ### Review "a small classic in the literature of Paris" Sebastian Faulks" ### About the Author Elliot Paul was an American journalist who served in Europe during the First World War and made his home in Paris for the inter-war period. As well as working as a stringer for the Chicago Tribune, he was a central figure in the anglophone literary scene in Paris, co-founding an experimental modernist literary magazine, transitions, which published Sam Beckett, Robert Graves, Kafka and Gertrude Stein between covers by Picasso, Miro, Kandinsky & Man Ray.