Series:

Black Swan S.

6 total works

Cover of Alexis

Alexis

by Marguerite Yourcenar

Published 1 November 1984

Cover of Oriental Tales

Oriental Tales

by Marguerite Yourcenar

Published 14 October 1985

Cover of Coup De Grace

Coup De Grace

by Marguerite Yourcenar

Published 1 May 1981
Set in the Baltic provinces in the aftermath of World War I, "Coup de Grace" tells the story of an intimacy that grows between three young people hemmed in by civil war: Erick, a Prussian fighting with the White Russians against the Bolsheviks; Conrad, his best friend from childhood; and Sophie, whose unrequited love for Conrad becomes an unbearable burden.

Cover of The Abyss

The Abyss

by Marguerite Yourcenar

Published 1 August 1981

Cover of A Coin in Nine Hands

A Coin in Nine Hands

by Marguerite Yourcenar

Published 27 January 1983
During the space of a day in Rome in 1933, a ten-lira coin passes through the hands of nine people--including an aging artist, a prostitute, and a would-be assassin of Mussolini. The coin becomes the symbol of contact between human beings, each lost in private passions and nearly impenetrable solitude.

A Coin in Nine Hands has . . . passages that move close to poetry and a story that belongs in both literature and history.--Doris Grumbach, Los Angeles Times Book Review

What lingers at the end of A Coin in Nine Hands is the shadowiness and puppetlike vagueness of the Dictator, and the compelling specificity of the so-called 'common people' revolving all around him.--Anne Tyler, The New Republic

Within a few pages we have met half the major characters in this haunting, brilliantly constructed novel. . . . The studied perfection, the structural intricacy and brevity remind one of Camus. Yet by comparison, Yourcenar's prose is lavish, emotional and imagistic.--Cynthia King, Houston Post

Transcends its specific time and place to become a portrait of vividly delineated characters caught in the vise of a tragically familiar political situation.--Publisher's Weekly

Best known as the author of Memoirs of Hadrian and The Abyss, Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-87) achieved countless literary honors and was the first woman ever elected to the Academie Francaise.

Cover of Fires

Fires

by Marguerite Yourcenar

Published 27 May 1982
Fires consists of nine monologues and narratives based on classical Greek stories. Antigone, Clytemnestra, Phaedo, Sappho are all mythical figures whose stories are mingled with contemporary themes. Interspersed are highly personal narratives, reflecting on a time of profound inner crisis in the author's life.

The unwritten novel among the fantasies and aphorisms of Fires is a classic tale.--Stephen Koch, New York Times Book Review