Marguerite Duras wrote the screenplay for Alain Resnais's 1959 film, which depicts a brief affair between a French actress, who is in Hiroshima to make a film about peace, and a Japanese architect. Over the course of a day and a night, they talk about memory, forgetting and the bomb, as she recalls a love affair in Nevers during the war with a German soldier and the punishment she suffered afterward. The text includes the dialogue, as well as notes on the setting and on the characters, and it shows the way in which Duras treats personal and collective trauma together.
It is for readers of French literature and film who like experimental writing. It is a short and poetic work that is useful for anyone interested in how memory is presented on the page.
Deep, inward-looking, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Wisdom Collector. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1960
- Publisher
- Gallimard
- Language
- FR
