French Literature Reviews - 2026

Apollinaire, Le Flâneur des deux rives
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs

Apollinaire, Le Flâneur des deux rives

Preface by Patricia Farazzi.

Paris: L'Eclat, 2018.

128 p.

EAN 9782841624379

7.00 EUR

Publisher's overview:

Le flâneur des deux rives is one of Apollinaire's final works, published in 1919, five months after his death. Commissioned by Cendrars and Cocteau for Éditions de la Sirène, this masterpiece of Parisian literature is a collage of texts prepared by Apollinaire himself from his columns published in various journals, then enriched with previously unpublished material. A journey through a "dreamed" reality, it wanders the streets, boulevards, and quays of a Paris still illuminated by the baroque figures of the wandering poet Alexandre Treutens, the shoemaker-philosopher André Jayet, and the writer Ernest La Jeunesse, capturing the spirit of a city soon to be surrendered to the constructive and destructive madness of the new century.

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) was a French writer (not entirely conventional, but nonetheless significant), inventor of the word "surrealism", columnist for the Mercure, art critic, repeatedly rejected lover, trepanned soldier of the Great War, publisher of literature's most famous "erotica", and, in the view of some—including ourselves—the greatest French-language poet of the past century (though Saint-John Perse is a close contender).

Published shortly after the author's death, this late work belongs to the rich tradition of Parisian flanerie, capturing the urban topography and ephemeral encounters of the French capital. The text assembles journalistic contributions and new material into a mosaic that reflects the shifting cultural landscape of the early twentieth century. Within the broader context of modernist writing, such urban chronicles often blend intimate observation with a collective portrait of the city, documenting the intellectual and bohemian networks that defined an era of rapid transition and artistic experimentation across Europe.

Readers interested in early twentieth-century French literature and the cultural history of Paris may find this volume a relevant addition to their reading. The book highlights figures from the capital's artistic milieu while offering insight into the author's late journalistic and creative output. The collection preserves the distinctive voice of a prominent literary figure whose work bridged traditional forms and the avant-garde movements that reshaped modern European letters.