MY NIGHTS ARE MORE WONDERFUL THAN YOUR DAYS
A man, a woman, a hotel, the sheets on a bed, the heat of July, the moon and the sea: with these few elements, Marie Billetdoux builds a novel with all the rigorous constraints of classical tragedy, where three nights make up an entire life.
My Nights are More Wonderful than Your Days is the story of a meeting. Every meeting has an element of risk; in the first minute, the first words exchanged, the story has already begun.
Éditions Stock are publishing new editions of Marie Billetdoux’s work. My Nights are More Wonderful than Your Days, which won the 1985 Prix Renaudot, was written under the name Raphaële Billetdoux. It came before the unclassifiable and unforgettable C’est encore moi qui vous écris (Stock, 2010)
On its publication, Raphaële’s book inspired Sylvie Genevoix in Madame Figaro to say: “If it were an object, here’s a book we could put straight on display with our treasured ornaments because it is so finely honed, refined and perceptive. There is insight on every line, poetry on every page.”
Marie Billetdoux is best known for her work under the name Raphaële Billetdoux: Prends garde à la douceur des choses (Prix Interallié, 1976), My Nights are More Wonderful than Your Days (Prix Renaudot 1985) and Dear Madam My Younger Daughter (1997).
In 2006 she took the name Marie and published Un peu de désir sinon je meurs, then C’est fou, une fille (2007) and C’est encore moi qui vous écris, published by Stock in 2010.
Un homme, une femme, un hôtel, les draps d’un lit, la chaleur d’un mois de juillet, la lune et la mer : avec ces seuls
éléments, Marie Billetdoux construit un roman qui a la rigueur d’une tragédie antique, où trois nuits sont toute une vie.
Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours est le roman d’une rencontre. Toute rencontre est un risque ; à la première minute, aux premiers mots échangés, l’histoire, déjà, est en marche.