An intimate portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke’s life and art in interwar Paris, which offers unparalleled insight into the creative process of one of the great literary minds of the twentieth century. This book coincides with the centenary of Rilke’s death in 2026.
Walking in the Luxembourg Gardens, describing encounters with enigmatic diva Eleonora Duse or an irascible Tolstoy; Rainer Maria Rilke’s French translator Maurice Betz enjoyed a rare intimacy with the great poet. This account of their collaborative translation of Rilke’s only novel brings the reader along on a tour of the glittering cultural scene of interwar Paris.
An elegant, poignant look at the great writer’s final years, Betz’s memoir, sensitively translated by Will Stone, is a portrait of genius, an evocation of a lost world, and a testament to enduring friendship.
Maurice Betz (1898-1946), as well as writing poetry and novels, was a prolific translator of Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann. He worked closely with Rilke on the French translations of his works.
Will Stone is a poet, essayist and literary translator of French, Franco-Belgian and German literature. His previous translations include Rilke in Paris, also by Maurice Betz, several works by Stefan Zweig, and poems by Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke.
In conversation with FBF guest interviewer Wendy Jones
Wendy is the author of seven books, including the bestselling Grayson Perry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl and Utterly lazy and Inattentive: Martin Parr in Words and Pictures. She has a PhD from Goldsmiths on writing interview-based biographies, and her books have been published in eleven languages.
