Paris Metro Tales

Following Helen Constantine's highly successful Paris Tales, Paris Metro Tales offers 22 remarkable short stories set throughout Paris--all connected by the underground tunnels of its famed Metro. The journey begins at the Gare du Nord, stops at 20 underground stations along the way, and ends at Lamarck-Caulaincourt, each story corresponding to one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris. Readers are invited to find their way through the underground, changing trains when necessary and imaginatively emerging to read a story it its original setting. The stories range from the 15th-century account of the miraculous Saint Genevieve, patron saint of Paris, through tales by favorite writers such as Zola, Simenon, Balzac, and Maupassant. Though connected by the metro, the subjects of these short stories vary widely: from Martine Delerm's gripping narrative of the last hours of Modigliani's mistress to Gérard de Nerval's rich evocation of the bustling market in Les Halles in the 1850s, Colette's unlikely involvement in a traffic accident near the Opéra, and Boulanger's fine description of a blackly funny experience in Père Lachaise. In addition to writers well known to the English-speaking world, this collection also includes French authors whose work deserves wider attention, including Frédéric Fajardie, Martine Delerm, Marie Desplechin, Paul Fournel, and Claude Dufresne. Each story is illustrated with a black-and-white photograph and the book includes a map and suggested itinerary through the metro system. Perfect for fans of Paris Tales, connoisseurs of French fiction, and all short story enthusiasts, Paris Metro Tales offers rare glimpses of the darker side of the City of Light.

Helen Constantine taught languages in schools until 2000, when she became a full-time translator. She has published two volumes of translated stories, Paris Tales and French Tales, and is currently editing a series of City Tales for Oxford University Press. She has translated Mademoiselle de Maupin by Théophile Gautier and Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos for Penguin. She is married to the writer David Constantine and with him edits the international magazine Modern Poetry in Translation.

- Introduction - Gare du Nord - Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre - Summer Rain - A Little Accident - If it were Sunday - Facino Cane - Rue des Larmes - Story - There or Elsewhere - Saint Genevieve - Expomodigliani.com - Minuet - Snow - La Halle - Confronting the Present - The Cab - The Little Restaurant at Ternes - Romance in the Metro - The Neighbour in the Rue de Jarente - The Landlady - La Butte Montmartre - Notes on the Metro - Notes on the Stories - Notes on the Authors - Selected Further Reading - Publisher's Acknowledgements - Map of metro