Bonjour Tristesse

Françoise Sagan was called the literary “Mademoiselle Chanel.” Starting with her very first novel, “Bonjour Tristesse!” (1954), which caused quite a stir, her literary career blossomed brilliantly—she created book after book with astonishing ease, and they were translated into various languages and circulated worldwide in millions of copies.

When, in 1985, her novel “Goodbye, Tristesse” was published, the writer was a full-fledged heroine of the secular chronicles, glossy magazines, scandals, and reports about court cases. “Goodbye, Tristesse” is a novel about how quickly fate can change. The diagnosis in a doctor’s office—“lung cancer”—sounds like a sentence. Forty-year-old architect Mathieu, a successful waster of his life, a favorite of women, leaves the clinic completely destroyed. Six months… he has only six months to live. And this fact makes him look at his friends, love, and the joys of everyday life in a completely different way.

Françoise Sagan stays true to herself: her prose is transparent, elegant, free of any posing—it gives joy to new generations of readers.