One of France’s most important literary figures, MARGUERITE DURAS (1914-1996) is best known in the United States for her autobiographical novel The Lover and the screenplay for Hiroshima, Mon Amour. Her memoir The War and a collection of her World War II– era notebooks, Wartime Writings: 1943-1949, are also available from The New Press.

An instant number-one best-seller in France, The North China Lover both shocks and entrances its readers. Initially written as notes toward a film script for The Lover, the book has the grainy, filmic qualities of a documentary. Far more daring and truthful than any book Duras has written before, The North China Lover emphasizes the realities of her youth in Indochina and reveals much that her earlier works concealed.