Oxford Book of French Short Stories

The French short story is a rich and diverse medium, but all the stories selected share a common characteristic: they make exciting reading. Spanning the centuries from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth, the collection opens with a rumbustious tale from the Marquis de Sade, takes in the masters of the nineteenth century, from Stendhal and Balzac to Maupassant, reaches to Quebec, Africa, and the French Caribbean in the twentieth century, and includes a great deal of women's literature.'This is a delightful collection, ideal either for Tube reading or for savouring at greater length.-DailyTelegraph'The anthology takes a tour through the high spots of French nineteenth-century literature-Times Literary Supplement
This collection of French short stories in translation expands our idea of French writing by including new stories by women writers and by authors of Francophone origin. Spanning the centuries from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth, the collection opens with a rumbustious tale from the Marquis de Sade, takes in the masters of the nineteenth century, from Stendhal and Balzac to Maupassant, and reaches to Quebec, Africa, and the French Caribbean in the twentieth century. Women writers include relatively well known figures such as Renee Vivien, Colette, and Beauvoir, and newer writers such as Assia Djebar, Christiane Baroche, and Annie Saumont. The French short story is a rich and diverse medium, but all the stories selected share a common characteristic: they make exciting reading.