Maurice Betz – författare

Rainer Maria Rilke offers a compelling portrait of Parisian life, art, and culture at the beginning of the 20th century

In 1902, the young German poet Rainer Maria Rilke travelled to Paris to write a monograph on the sculptor Auguste Rodin. He returned many times over the course of his life, by turns inspired and appalled by the city's high culture and low society, and his writings give a fascinating insight into Parisian art and culture in the last century.

This book brings together Rilke's sublime poetic meditations on existence Notes on the Melody of Things and the first English translation of Rilke's experiences in Paris as observed by his French translator Maurice Betz.

'I owe Betz infinite gratitude...a first-rate poet, a creative spirit, and a friend to all creative spirits...an ornament to literary France...an artist with words, lovable and worthy of love' - Thomas Mann

'Maurice Betz is one of those artists whose importance only fully appears after they have disappeared' - Marcel Aymé

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

An elegant, poignant look at the great writer's final years, Betz's 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.