Madame Bovary
Author: Gustave Flaubert
Emma Bovary, beautiful and ambitious but bored by her life in the provinces and her marriage to a country doctor, craves passion in her life. She tries to escape into sentimental novels and to find glamour in expensive fashion and an elaborately decorated home. Her self-obsession and romantic fantasies lead her into two disappointing affairs and escalating debt as Emma struggles to make her life everything she believes it should be, and her efforts lead only to disaster and ruin. Deemed so lifelike that many women claimed they were the model for his heroine, Flaubert instead insisted: 'Madame Bovary, c'est moi'.
This new translation by Lydia Davis captures the modern tone that Flaubert developed to reflect the weight and complexity of Emma's psychology. It also renders the richness of the original text and the subtleties of Flaubert's celebrated style.
Also by Gustave Flaubert
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{ view all }All That I Am by Anna Funder has won the Barbara Jefferis Award.
The award is offered annually for “the best novel written by an Australian author that depicts women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in society”.
Anna beat fellow Miles Franklin contenders Foal's Bread and Cold Light.
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