Summer with Proust

Marcel Proust's novel (1871–1922) In Search of Lost Time has been an unwavering challenge to readers around the world since its publication in the 1910s–1920s. What is it: an immense cathedral-like book in the tradition of the great 19th-century novels, a panorama of the refined culture of Europe at the "end of the belle époque," swept away by world wars, an experience of philosophical contemplation of memory through literature, an attempt by the author to understand himself, his reflections on what it means to write a book and how to dare to do so, or, finally, an invitation to the reader to understand what it truly means to read a book? All of this together and much more is contemplated from various perspectives by nine readers of Proust: literary scholars, philosophers, art historians. And, of course, In Search is a challenge to the translator, which is embraced in this book by Elena Baevskaya, who reveals a fragmented yet cohesive view of the body of texts of the outstanding French writer.