L'Amant

A woman looks back on her adolescence in French colonial Indochina, where at fifteen she is crossing the Mekong by ferry when a wealthy young Chinese man approaches her. They begin an affair in his apartment in Saigon, which both know cannot last because of race, class, and her family's disapproval. Marguerite Duras blends this with portraits of her desperate mother and her violent older brother. The narration moves back and forth in time in short fragments, and the older woman recalls the heat, river, and the affair.

Readers of short, sensual literary fiction and of French writing will find a concentrated story. It is also a good way to approach Duras's style, which is spare and elliptical.

Deep, inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

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