Jardins de papiers: De Rousseau à Modiano

évelyne Bloch-dano

Gardens on paper or dreams of gardens? Having already explored forgotten vegetables, the biographer Évelyne Bloch-Dano now moves from the vegetable plot to gardens in the work of great prose-writers: gardens are a reflection of the soul, a well-earned rest, an improving form of work, nostalgia for childhood and the dream of an ideal world. From Rousseau to Proust, from Marguerite Duras to George Sand, from Colette to Modiano, gardens appear in novels as representations of the real world, but also as reflections of the imagination. The charmingly erudite first section focuses on history and is devoted to different types of garden from the bible to English parklands; the second analyses precisely and perceptively their role in literary works.

There is also an element of autobiography concealed within these well-tended wanderings: any lover of literature and any gardening enthusiast will navigate and decode and love this still life.

The biographer and essayist Évelyne Bloch-Dano is a prize-winning and widely translated author whose most notable works include biographies Madame Zola (1997, Elle Magazine’s Grand prix des lectrices), Flora Tristan, la femme-messie (2001, Prix François-Billetdoux), Madame Proust (2004, Prix Renaudot de l’essai) and Le Dernier Amour de George Sand (2010); but also Mes maisons d’écrivains (2005), the delicious La Fabuleuse Histoire des légumes (2008), and the acclaimed La Biographe (2007) and Porte de Champerret (2013).

Un entretien avec Évelyne Bloch-Dano, 
filmé dans le Jardin Marcel Proust à Illiers-Combray

Voici les liens pour accéder à d'autres photos de Nicolas Drogoul prises dans des lieux qui ont inspiré Marcel Proust: