Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile – Saganová Francoise (2013)

This volume brings together Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan’s stylish, shimmering and amoral tale of adolescence and betrayal on the French Riviera, and A Certain Smile. Published when Sagan was just eighteen, Bonjour Tristesse was considered too daring for 1950s Britain, where sexual scenes were removed from the English edition. Heather Lloyd’s fresh and accurate translation presents the uncensored text in full for the first time. The novella follows Cécile, who leads a carefree life with her widowed father and his young mistresses until, during one hot summer on the Riviera, he decides to remarry, with devastating consequences. In A Certain Smile, Dominique, a young woman bored with her lover, begins an encounter with an older man that develops in unexpected and troubling ways. Both novellas include an introduction by Rachel Cusk, while Lloyd has also written a new afterword. The volume also includes background on Sagan, who was born in France in 1935, achieved a succès de scandale with Bonjour tristesse in 1954, and went on to write novels, plays and screenplays.