Manual of Saint Germain-des-pres by Boris Vian

Rizzoli is pleased to present the first English-language translation of Manual of St-Germain-des-Près by beloved French author Boris Vian. Paris in the fifties was an incredible place and time: with the end of the war, everything seemed possible. Vian's book, a guided tour of the left bank cafés, galleries, underground jazz clubs, theaters, and apartment salons captures the transformative culture of the existentialist and post-surrealistic circles. The list of luminaries he ran with includes Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Alberto Giacometti, Juliette Greco, Raymond Queneau, Jacquês Prevert, Miles Davis, and, of course, Jean-Paul Sartre. Manual of St-Germain-des-Près is a chronicle of a period, a place, a circle, and a lifestyle, highlighted in this volume with sumptuous photographs by Georges Dudognon that illustrate Vian's words. A broader cultural context for Vian's work is provided in the introduction.