Strait is the Gate by André Gide is a profound reflection on love, sacrifice, and the quest for spiritual perfection. Published in 1909, this work focuses on the characters Alissa and Jérôme, who share mutual affection from childhood, but whose love is marked by renunciation and suffering.Through this story, Gide explores themes such as emotional repression, the conflicts between desire and morality, and the ways in which religious or philosophical ideals can shape...

A young artist pursues a search for knowledge through the treatment of homosexuality and the collapse of morality in middle class France.

This is Andreas Gide’s 1931 novella, “Two Symphonies”. It's the story of a blind girl who is adopted by a pastor with a large family, and describes the unfortunate turmoil and friction that ensue. This marvellous tale is highly recommended for fans of Gide’s work, and would make for a fantastic addition to any collection. André Paul Guillaume Gide (1869–1951) was a French author who won the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature. His work often takes on the form of an exploration of freedom, and i...

André Paul Guillaume Gide (1869-1951), known as André Gide, was a renowned French writer. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1947 and founder of the prestigious publishing house Gallimard, André Gide is the author of memorable books such as "The Immoralist," "If It Die...," "Strait is the Gate," and "The Counterfeiters," among others. His work contains many autobiographical elements and explores moral, religious, and sexual conflic...

First published in 1902 and immediately assailed for its themes of omnisexual abandon and perverse aestheticism, The Immoralist is the novel that launced André Gide's reputation as one of France's most audacious literary stylists, a groundbreaking work that opens the door onto a universe of unfettered impulse whose possibilities still seem exhilarating and shocking.Gide's protagonist is the frail, scholarly Michel, who shortly after his wedding nearly dies of tuberculosis. ...

If It Die... by André Gide is a profound exploration of personal identity, moral ambiguity, and the human experience. Through this autobiographical work, Gide reflects on his formative years, offering an intimate portrayal of his journey from adolescence to adulthood. The narrative delves into his struggles with religion, sexuality, and societal expectations, portraying his inner conflict with refreshing honesty.In If It Die..., ...

Could the Pope have been secretly abducted?When nineteen-year-old Lafcadio Wluiki learns he is to inherit a French aristocrat's fortune, he heads to Rome, where a plot is afoot: ingenious fraudsters have set about convincing their wealthy victims that the pontiff has been imprisoned by freemasons at Castel Sant'Angelo.Saving toddlers from burning buildings one minute and committing a shocking, motiveless crime the next, the amoral Lafcadio is one of Nobel-winner André Gide'...

During the 1930s, Gide briefly became a communist, or more precisely, a fellow traveller (he never formally joined the Communist Party). As a distinguished writer sympathising with the cause of communism, he was invited to tour the Soviet Union as a guest of the Soviet Union of writers. The tour disillusioned him and he subsequently became quite critical of Soviet Communism. This criticism of Communism caused him to lose socialist friends, especially when he made a clean break with it in t...

Personal recollections from André Gide on a man who profoundly influenced his work—Oscar WildeAndré Gide, a towering figure in French letters, draws upon his friendship with Oscar Wilde to sketch a compelling portrait of the tragic, doomed author, both celebrated and shunned in his time. Rather than compile a complete biography, Gide invites us to discover Wilde as he did—from their first meeting in 1891 to their final parting just two years before Wilde's death—al...

In 1890, during the pontificate of Leo XIII, Anthime Armand-Dubois, unbeliever and freemason, visited Rome in order to consult Dr. X, the celebrated specialist for rheumatic complaints. “What!” cried Julius de Baraglioul, his brother-in-law. “Is it your body you are going to treat in Rome? Pray Heaven you may realise when you get there that your soul is in far worse case.” To which Armand-Dubois replied in a tone of excessive commiseration: “My poor dear fellow, just look at my shoulders.”...

A slim but powerful work of metafiction by a Nobel Prize-winning French writer and intellectual.André Gide is the inventor of modern metafiction and of autofiction, and his short novel Marshlands shows him handling both forms with a deft and delightful touch. The protagonist of Marshlands is a writer who is writing a book called Marshlands, which is about a reclusive character who lives all alone in a stone tower. The narrator, by contras...

This debut work lays bare the early brilliance and philosophical conflicts of André Gide, a towering figure in French literatureAndré Gide, one of the masters of French literature, captures the essence of the philosophical Romantic in this profoundly personal first novel, completed when he was just twenty years old. Drawing heavily on his religious upbringing and private journals, The Notebooks of André Walter—with its "white" and "black" halves—tells the ...