''Oriental Tales'' (french: Nouvelles orientales) is a 1938 short story collection by the Belgian writer
Marguerite Yourcenar
Marguerite Yourcenar (, , ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the ''Prix Fem ...
. The stories share a self-consciously mythological form; some are based on pre-existing myths and legends, while some are new.
The story "How Wang-Fo Was Saved" was adapted into an animated short film by
René Laloux
René Laloux (; July 1929 – 14 March 2004) was a French animator, screenwriter and film director.
Biography
He was born in Paris in 1929 and went to art school to study painting. After some time working in advertising, he got a job in a psychi ...
in the 1980s.
Contents
* "
How Wang-Fô Was Saved"
* "
Marko's Smile"
* "
The Milk of Death"
* "
The Last Love of Prince Genji"
* "
The Man Who Loved the Nereids"
* "
Our Lady-of-the-Swallows"
* "
Aphrodissia, the Widow"
* "
Kali Beheaded
Kali (; sa, काली, ), also referred to as Mahakali, Bhadrakali, and Kalika ( sa, कालिका), is a Hindu goddess who is considered to be the goddess of ultimate power, time, destruction and change in Shaktism. In this tradit ...
"
* "
The End of Marko Kraljevic
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
"
* "
The Sadness of Cornelius Berg
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...
"
Publication
Éditions Gallimard published the book in 1938. It was published in English in 1985 through
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, in translation by
Alberto Manguel in collaboration with the author.
Reception
Susan Slocum Hinerfeld of ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' called the book "a curiosity, a melange" and wrote about the stories: "They are meant to demonstrate virtuosity. Instead they demonstrate the dangers of imitation." The critic wrote that "the story of Wang-Fo, though rich in content, is 'faux-chinois', pretend-fantastic, coy. It is plainly a clumsy Western exercise in Chinese story telling", while "'The Man Who Loved the Nereids' is, in contrast, as radiant as Madame Yourcenar's mind. Clever, stylish, funny and original, an homage to Greek myth, it links the ancient and the modern worlds."
See also
*
1938 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1938.
Events
*January
**The John Dos Passos trilogy ''U.S.A.'' is published, containing his novels '' The 42nd Parallel'' (1930), ''1919'' (1932), and ''The Big Mo ...
*
20th-century French literature
20th-century French literature is literature written in French from 1900 to 1999. For literature made after 1999, see the article Contemporary French literature. Many of the developments in French literature in this period parallel changes in ...
References
1938 short story collections
French short story collections
Works by Marguerite Yourcenar
Éditions Gallimard books
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