7.8 /10 1 Votes
Original title Nouvelles orientales Publication date 1938 Pages 172 Publisher Éditions Gallimard Country France | 3.9/5 Goodreads Language French Published in English 1985 Originally published 1938 Page count 172 Translator Alberto Manguel | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Marguerite Yourcenar books Comment Wang‑Fo fut sauve, The Abyss, Coup de Grâce, Memoirs of Hadrian, Notre‑Dame‑des‑Hirondelles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Oriental Tales (French: Nouvelles orientales) is a 1938 short story collection by the French writer Marguerite Yourcenar. 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 in the 1980s.
Contents
Contents
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 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."