Guy de Pourtalès, Europe as a literary compass

A Swiss writer, naturalized French but born in Berlin in 1881, Guy de Pourtalès was one of Gallimard's best-selling authors before falling completely into oblivion, in France even more than in Switzerland. Open to Europe and the world, but at the same time attached to his roots, he constantly vacillated between different identities, remaining on the bangs yet at the heart of different spheres, both social and ideological. In La pêche miraculeuse, published in 1937, Guy de Pourtalès portrays French-speaking society at the turn of the century through the adventures of a young Genevan aristocrat, Paul de Villars. This apprenticeship novel, in the purest tradition of Goethe's Wilhem Meister, gives us a front-row seat to the upheavals of the 20th century, between the tranquil shores of Lake Geneva and the trenches of the Great War.

Novelist, biographer, essayist, columnist, or author.