A Place in the World Called Paris

by Susan Sontag (Foreword), Miles Hyman (Illustrator), Steven Barclay (Editor)

Paris--with its subtle moods, elegant charm, and sensual allure--inspires writers and visitors like no other city. A Place in the World Called Paris, now in a beautiful paperback edition, collects the twentieth century's most distinguished authors writing on the unique facets of the City of Light. This anthology of more than 170 short excerpts from fiction, poetry, essays, and memoirs presents fresh and unexpected views of Paris: Franz Kafka on riding the Metro; Truman Capote on visiting Colette in her apartment in the Palais-Royal; Jane Kramer on Parisian style; Claude Debussy on the Luxembourg Gardens; E.B. White on the Liberation; and Maya Angelou on Paris nightlife. With an evocative foreword by Susan Sontag, and atmospheric charcoal drawings by Miles Hyman, this is a treasured volume for anyone who remembers Paris, from literature, or from their own walks along the Seine.

Genres: France, Travel, Nonfiction, Anthologies

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Susan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.

Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.

Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.

Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.

A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.

Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.

Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.

Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.

Reviews

[Rebecca Chekouras · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ira Glass mentions this book in the credit roll following his wonderful excursions through Paris with David Sedaris so I was curious. A Place in the World is a compendium of quotes, recollections, observations, reminiscence about The City of Light, something to dip into and enjoy like a . . . well, a box of chocolates. It’s fun, I enjoyed it. The book really shone, however, when I threw it in my purse on the way out the door to a doctor’s appointment. I read it in the waiting room, a place where my anxiety can spike to astronomical levels but I was lost in The Tuileries when my name was called. My BP reading didn’t reflect the usual tension I bring to medical examinations so huzzah!

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quotes about Paris from many famous hands.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mmmm... I really liked this book, probably more than I liked the city of Paris. It's very fun to read, taking in little short stories and snippets at a time. Plus I love Hemingway and the whole romance of the Lost Generation, and there's a few quotes from authors of that era in the book.