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  • Published: 1 December 2020
  • ISBN: 9780241442906
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $22.99

Women




A gorgeous Romanian modern classic about love and relationships, with an introduction by Booker-winner John Banville

Stefan Valeriu, a young Romanian student, holidays alone in the Alps, where he soon becomes entangled in romantic relationships with three different women who pass through his guesthouse. We follow Stefan after his return to Paris as he reflects on the women in his life, at times playing the lover, and at others observing shrewdly from the periphery.

Women's four interlinked stories offer nuanced and deeply moving portraits of romantic relationships in all their complexity, from unrequited love and passionate affairs to tepid marriages of convenience. In light, elegant prose, Mihail Sebastian, widely regarded as the greatest Romanian writer of the 20th century, explores longing, otherness, empathy, and regret.

  • Published: 1 December 2020
  • ISBN: 9780241442906
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 176
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Mihail Sebastian

Mihail Sebastian was the pen-name of the Romanian writer Iosif Hechter. Born in the Danube port of Braila, he died in a road accident in 1945. During the period between the wars he was well-known for his lyrical and ironic plays and for urbane psychological novels tinged with melancholy, as well as for his extraordinary literary essays.

Also by Mihail Sebastian

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Praise for Women

His prose is like something Chekhov might have written - the same modesty, candour, and subtleness of observation

Arthur Miller

I love Sebastian's courage, his lightness, and his wit

John Banville

Nothing I have read is more affecting than Mihail Sebastian's magnificent, haunting 1934 novel, For Two Thousand Years.

Philippe Sands, Guardian Books of the Year 2016

A compelling portrait of desire

Kirkus

Sebastian's observations of the complex physical and emotional details of romantic intrigue are perceptive and affectionate....these concise stories...showcase Sebastian's brilliant eye for emotional detail

Publishers Weekly

If there is any justice [Sebastian's] posthumous profile will increase

Herald Scotland

Sebastian belongs in the pantheon of classic authors

New Statesman

Sebastian died a victim of an automobile accident in 1946, having survived the Second World War and the Holocaust. That fatal moment robbed the literary world of a unique voice

New York Journal of Books

A minor masterpiece of voice, mood and emotion

Irish Times