About this ebook
This edition includes poems from the Poésies érotiques and Élégies, which established Parny's reputation; the Chansons madécasses ("Madagascar Songs"), which were influential in the development of the prose poem; five of his published letters, written in a mixture of prose and verse; the narrative poem Le Voyage de Céline; and selections from his sardonic, anticlerical later poetry. A substantial introduction discusses Parny's poetry in connection with its literary context and the themes of gender, race, and postcoloniality.
About the author
Françoise Lionnet is professor of Romance languages and literatures, comparative literature, African and African American studies, and women, gender, and sexuality at Harvard University. Her recent books include The Known and the Uncertain: Creole Cosmopolitics of the Indian Ocean and Writing Women and Critical Dialogues: Subjectivity, Gender, and Irony.
Peter Low is a senior adjunct fellow at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He has translated many French poems and recently published Translating Song.
Blake Smith is a Harper-Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago and the translator of K. Madavane's To Die in Benares.
