We Will Always Have Paris

Under option: Bulgaria.

The title comes from the film Casablanca: it is while reminiscing about this luminous moment - their love idyll in Paris prior to the German occupation - that the two lovers can continue to live, go their separate ways if necessary, and follow their own paths.
This book is dedicated to this unique feeling: the sense of wonder, how it is born and runs through the life of an individual – the life of the author himself.
We Will Always Have Paris is a circular novel that unravels through childhood and its first experiences of wonder – magic words, fabulous creatures, magnetic objects and unfamiliar situations – all the way to adulthood where the sense of wonder extends.
There is not much said about Paris in this book. It is, rather, filled with tales of journeys from Japan to Africa, and meetings - from Julien Gracq to Ismail Kadaré to Albert Cossery, and the shadow of the enigmatic B. Traven.
It is through the ceaseless back and forth from the dream-world of one’s childhood to its resonances in the world of adulthood – and in the gap that exists between the two – that the sense of wonder flourishes, that a life and oeuvre are built, with their false start, their disillusions and their surprises.

Éric Faye published several novels at Stock: Croisière en mer des pluies (1999), Les cendres de mon avenir (2001), La durée d’une vie sans toi (2003), Mes trains de nuit (2005), Le syndicat des pauvres types (2006) and L’homme sans empreintes (2008).