Centenary of the death of Marcel Proust: a major exhibition and publications

"You can't imagine the number of people who will come to see you after my death, nor who will write to you

," assured Marcel Proust with astonishing lucidity to his governess and confidante Céleste Albaret, as she recounted in

. .

The writer would therefore not have been surprised by the magnitude of the anniversary of the hundred years of his disappearance, which occurred on November 18, 1922 following a poorly treated bronchitis.

The celebrations start on Tuesday, October 11 with the opening of a major exhibition at the BnF François-Mitterrand.

Read alsoProust: we visited the BnF exhibition in preview

Marcel Proust, the factory of the work

, which required three years of work, was thought of as a wandering through

.

Hundreds of pieces, including exceptional manuscripts, have been brought together to render legible the writer's research and wanderings, his dissatisfaction and his genius.

,” notes exhibition curator Antoine Compagnon, who notably edited

in La Pléiade.

This "

", explains the academician, serves as a guideline for a visit punctuated by photos and paintings, from the first sentence of

to the last of

.

To build the exhibition, Antoine Compagnon worked alongside Nathalie Mauriac-Dyer, research director at the CNRS and great-grand-niece of the author, and the curator Guillaume Fau.

Imaginary visit to Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay offers a journey through its collections, led by two actors, Pauline Caupenne and Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet.

Thanks to this theatrical imaginary visit, you will discover in particular that most of the characters of

are inspired by characters that the author frequented, and that the paintings he describes, sometimes fictitious, borrow in particular from Whistler , Monet, Boldini traits that we can recognize.

Discover this imaginary visit every Thursday at 7:30 p.m. from October 20 to December 15 (excluding school holidays).

Read also

by Thierry Laget: the story of a literary riot

As for publications, the thick correspondence of Marcel Proust is republished by Plon.

It had taken more than twenty years to collect these thousands of letters, between 1970 and 1993. The box, in five volumes and prefaced by the eminent specialist Jean-Yves Tadié, arrives in bookstores on November 3 next.

, by Gaëtan Picon released in 1963, has already been entitled to a recent reissue.

Extending a little more the list of works dedicated to the master, Thierry Laget, publishes

, in which he tells the story of the author through the prism of his tastes for painting.

In bookstores on Wednesday, October 12.

Monumental reissue

Proust was the subject of multiple publications on the occasion of the literary season in September.

was interested, for once, in his relationship to space.

In

, Pierre Birnbaum analyzed the importance, for him, of his mother's confession, of religion in general.

In a different genre, the linguist Jean Pruvost had the idea of ​​reading the article “Proust (Marcel)” in all the dictionaries in his possession, which results in a charming essay entitled

.

Stéphane Carlier, he imagined in a novel,

, a Burgundian hairdresser who discovers the Proustian salons and the thousand reflections of the writer.

We must add the adaptation into a graphic novel by

 - the work of the governess Céleste Albaret -, and a particularly interesting investigation,

by Thierry Laget.

Low blows, shenanigans, and manipulations had indeed surrounded the awarding of the prestigious award to the author for

, an event whose centenary was celebrated three years ago.