Parfums

Philippe Claudel's highly original new book is an autobiographical evocation - one might even call it an olfactory memoir - of his beloved pays natal in Lorraine, where he has lived all his life. Sixty-three brief essays conjure up the distillation of the fragrances or scents associated with his childhood and adolescence, and which evoke a forgotten world: acacia, mist, coal, the swimming pool, his mother's sun cream lotion, the cemetery, churches, first love, fried bacon, Gauloises and Gitanes, a sleeping child, communal showers, hay, cinnamon, his uncle's pullover, amidst countless other…