Short Stories in French

I have had very little time this days to read french stories, you know, with the Christmas presents,... But I have already read some stories and I am already improving my french vocabulary by reading it. This was the exact book I was looking for, if I have any vocabulary doubt I just have a look and the english translation, and that's it!. Thank you very much. Sonia

This collection of twelve stories by contemporary French and Quebec authors is challenging for the beginning and maybe even intermediate level student of French. However, Penguin has done an excellent job of matching the English translation on the facing pages, so it is easy to follow the stories in the two languages line by line. Coward's short introduction to the stories is smart and places the themes and techniques of the writers in context. Most of these characters are introspective to a fault(!), isolated, obsessive, delusional, desperate but also desperately hopeful. There is little in the way of humor in these pages - mostly irony and it is decidely dark. But you will be moved in different ways by 'Heloise', 'The Hunters' Cafe', the 'Accursed Notebooks', and you will be made to feel the bitter almost hallucinatory cold of a Montreal winter night in "The Objet d'Art'. You will be surprised by where these writers take you in their stories. In the end this collection is sufficiently intereresting to motivate even a relatively inexperienced student of French to push through some fairly dense prose.

Great practice for intermediate to advanced French learners. Some stories require quite a lot of concentration and a second reading, but the parallel text translations save resorting to the dictionary ever few minutes. A great way to expand your understanding of French.