Translation Rights TQE / The death of Montaigne

In 1588, when the wars between Catholics and Protestants turned Europe into a bloodbath, and just prior to the enthronement in France of the Bourbon King Henry IV, Michel de Montaigne met Marie de Gournay, a young admirer of his work. The “Man of the Mountains”, who was fifty-five at the time and “happily married”, initiated a mysterious relationship with the impetuous Marie, who became his “adoptive daughter”. In an attempt to reveal this mystery, Jorge Edwards, the narrator and conductor of the story, reconstructs their surprising, even crepuscular, passion and everything that surrounded Montaigne both on a public and a private sphere. He also investigates his family roots, his youth and maturity, and explores his relationship with women and his idea of eroticism.

He reveals the political man, the anti-dogmatic and sensible thinker, but above all, the wise but also mischievous man who was the author of Essays.

While he applies Montaigne’s vital lesson to the own reality of the narrator, Edwards sheds light on the most revealing, curious, often sensual, and always modern aspects of this most novelistic character until the time of his death.

Jorge Edwards was born in Santiago (Chile) in 1931. He studied Law and Philosophy at the University of Chile and at Princeton. He began his career as a diplomat in 1957 and became known for his defense of freedom of speech while exiled during Pinochet’s dictatorship. He has been a visiting professor in universities throughout North America and Europe and has been the Ambassador of Chile to the Unesco. He was awarded Chile’s National Prize for Literature in 1994 and the Cervantes Prize in 1999, as well as the Comillas Prize for his biography Adiós, Poeta on Pablo Neruda, for whom he worked as a secretary and close collaborator. He is the author of novels, short stories, essays and memoirs and writes articles for newspapers around the world. His book of memoirs, Persona non grata, marked the first time a Latin American intellectual criticized the Cuban regime. He is currently the Ambassador of Chile in France.

Praise for his previous books:

“We owe him a rich, deep and coherent body of work (...) that sooner or later must be recognized for what it really is: one of the most valuable in the Spanish language in recent years.” Mario Vargas Llosa

“His language is an amalgam of the most difficult virtues: transparency with intelligence, and incisive penetration with a smile.” Octavio Paz

“A manual about how a writer, in the face of power – any power –, can and should behave. Edwards gave us a lesson about moral value, about truth and lies.” Roberto Bolaño