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| Marcel Proust Fernando Vicente |
“It All Comes Together”
How did Marcel Proust become a great writer?
By Roland Barthes
MONDAY, MAY 16, 2016
In 1979 Barthes was teaching a course at the Collège de France entitled “La Préparation du roman,” lectures translated into English as The Preparation of the Novel. One of his aims in that course was to explore the relationship between teaching and literary creation and the ways in which the one might stimulate the other. This article, published in Le Magazine littéraire of January 1979, a mass-market magazine easily available from French newsstands, is perhaps best read in that context.—Chris Turner
T
here are, it seems, few enigmas in literary history. Yet here is one that has Proust as its hero. It intrigues and interests me, particularly as it is an enigma relating to creation (the only sort of relevance to someone who wants to write).
