author
Paul Morand
1888–1976
A fast, elegant stylist of interwar France, this novelist and diplomat became known for short fiction and travel writing that captured the speed, glamour, and unease of modern city life. His work was widely admired for its wit and precision, even as his political choices during World War II have kept his legacy deeply contested.
1 Audiobook
Lewis and Irene
by Paul Morand
About the author
Born in Paris in 1888, Paul Morand moved in artistic and intellectual circles from an early age and went on to build a parallel career in literature and diplomacy. He entered the French diplomatic service before World War I, and his postings abroad helped shape the cosmopolitan outlook that runs through much of his fiction and travel writing.
Morand became one of the notable French prose stylists of the 1920s and 1930s. He was especially praised for short works such as Tendres Stocks, Ouvert la nuit, and Fermé la nuit, which brought a brisk, modern rhythm to portraits of nightlife, travel, and restless urban society. Readers often remember his writing for its speed, sharp imagery, and polished surface.
His later reputation is inseparable from controversy. During World War II, Morand was associated with the Vichy regime, and that record long complicated public recognition of his literary standing. Even so, he remained an important and debated figure in 20th-century French literature, eventually entering the Académie française in 1968. He died in Paris in 1976.