PASSION PERFECT ("SIMPLE PASSION")

London, England: Quartet Books, 1993. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. London, England: Quartet Books, 1993. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 65 pages. The author's autobiographical novel. One of Annie Ernaux's finest achievements. The first appearance of the title in English and in the United Kingdom. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, of which there are many. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only that promptly disappeared. The book is now known as "Simple Passion", the title chosen by her American publisher in 1993, and has stuck ever since, particularly in its 2021 Reissued British and American Editions. The First Edition is now rare. Presents Annie Ernaux's "Passion Perfect" in a felicitous English translation. Recounts the year and a half she had a passionate and secret love affair with an un-named career diplomat, a much younger married man. Now there was nothing "simple" or "perfect" about this passion. Among Annie Ernaux's books, all of them autobiographical, this is perhaps her most negative, life-annihilating experience. As such, it is excruciating to read and digest, is nearly unbearable in its intensity therefore impossible to ignore or forget. As only she could, Annie Ernaux describes the emotional - existential - Hell resulting from overpowering desire - and her love, surely unrequited, because the loved one is committed to both his marriage and career. Routinely lavished with praise for her spare prose, here in a mere 65 pages, almost as a relief (for readers and critics alike) from the 600-page-plus novels of many other writers, Ernaux once again strips away literary devices and artifices, her writing pared down to its most naked and vulnerable. Which is, of course, itself a literary device, intense, confessional writing "at zero degree" (her novel's epigraph is from Roland Barthes). "Love and Desire are sanctified. Annie Ernaux reveals all but explains nothing" (Le Figaro). Annie Ernaux kept an actual diary during the affair, which she subsequently published, unfiltered, in 2001 as "Getting Lost". The DJ Cover Photograph, "Saint Cloud Park", is one of Edouard Boubat's most famous images, beautifully reproduced. An absolute "must-have" title for Annie Ernaux collectors. This title is a great book. As far as we know, this is the only copy of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing (British) available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies of "Simple Passion" available online have serious flaws (because they were read) or are in multiple subsequent printings. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022. One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ANNIE ERNAUX TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0704370425.