The lover (novel)

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The Lover ( French original title: L'Amant ) is an autobiographical story by Marguerite Duras from 1984 . The work dedicated to Bruno Nuytten was awarded the Prix ​​Goncourt in the same year .

action

The story takes place in the French colony of Indochina , now Vietnam , at the beginning of the 1930s. Duras tells the story of a then fifteen-year-old French girl who grew up in Southeast Asia, from the encounter on a Mekong ferry with a man twelve years older to her departure for Europe a year and a half later - including leaps in time to Paris during the Second World War .

The sexual relationship with this rich Chinese man who is dependent on his father, which is not supposed to be a love story, is the bracket that holds the play together from the outside, but by no means dominates the narrative. In fact, family members and friends play at least as important a role:

  • the mother, described by the daughter as insane - the father is already dead - who does not seem to notice her daughter's relationship with the Chinese;
  • the older brother, prone to malice and adored by the mother, who will fail as an adult, as well
  • the younger brother, who is threatened by the older one, is not protected by the mother, has his sister as the only ally and dies at a young age;
  • Classmates in Vietnam and acquaintances in Paris, to whom not insignificant parts of the story are devoted, without establishing a deeper connection with the attempted self-analysis of the family.

backgrounds

The Lover is a nearly 100-page collage of memory fragments of the author from the time of her growing up, which was more than 50 years behind her when she was written. Duras does not provide a continuous narrative thread: Rather, the sections, some of which are only a few lines long, but no more than two pages long, usually jump back and forth concerning time and space.

Marguerite Duras called her story "the easiest book I have ever written". It also became her most successful book.

filming

The novel was filmed in 1992 under the title The Lover by Jean-Jacques Annaud with Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Jane March in the leading roles - a project from which the author distanced herself violently, since only the erotic bracket was taken over and the film in contrast to the book, largely corresponds to the expectations aroused by the title.

radio play

The lover was staged in 2016 by Kai Grehn with Dagmar Manzel , Paula Beer , Alexander Fehling and Nina Kunzendorf for SWR and published as an audio book by Audiobook Hamburg . The music for the radio play version was composed by the Chinese avant-garde musician Song Yuzhe .

bibliography

  • L'Amant . Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris 1984
  • The lover . Translated from the French by Ilma Rakusa . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1985 ISBN 3-518-38129-6