Eric Hazan, author of the acclaimed The Invention of Paris, leads us by the hand in this walk from Ivry to Saint-Denis, roughly following the meridian that divides Paris into east and west, and passing such familiar landmarks as the Luxembourg Gardens, the Pompidou Centre, the Gare du Nord and Montmartre, as well as little-known alleyways and arcades. Filled with historical anecdotes, geographical observations and literary references, Hazan's walk guides us through an unknown Paris. He shows us how, through planning and modernisation, the city's revolutionary past has been erased in order to enforce a reactionary future; but by walking and observation, he shows us how we can regain our knowledge of the radical past of the city of Robespierre, the Commune, Sartre and the May '68 uprising. And by drawing on his own life story, as surgeon, publisher and social critic, Hazan vividly illustrates a radical life lived in the city of revolution.
Eric Hazan is the founder of the publisher La Fabrique and the author of several books, including the celebrated The Invention of Paris. He has lived in Paris all his life.
Title: A Walk Through Paris: A Radical Exploration
Author: Eric Hazan
ISBN: 9781786632586
Binding:
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication Date: 2018-03-01
Number of Pages: 208
Weight: 0.3721 kg
Eric Hazan's elegant, characteristically learned account of his journey through contemporary Paris, written in a tone both intimate and authoritative, is at once a companionably unhurried evocation of the city's rich, radical past and - at a time when capital is dramatically reorganising its topography - a bracingly urgent intervention in debates about the city's future. As Andre Breton might have observed, there really are no lost steps here. - Matthew Beaumont, author of Nightwalking An ardent student of the anatomy of the city, Hazan is a keen observer with a remarkable memory: despite his limitations, he has written an unmissable account of Paris's unique and defiant physiognomy. - Lauren Elkin, Guardian In tracing a continuity of resistance and its presence within the contradictions of the contemporary city, Hazan makes a compelling argument that `the people have not lost the battle of Paris' ... This book similarly brings the solitary act of reading and the social experience of urban life into constant dialogue. Passages from Balzac, Baudelaire and Andre Breton come to mind at different street corners, verbal illuminations reflecting the ambience of a particular locale. In these enlightened pages, Hazan deftly guides the reader through a Paris where history and literature animate the lived experience of the present. - Eugene Brennan, Washington Post Hazan is much concernced with riot, insurrection, protest, and revolution. He is, naturally, on the side of the proletariat...A Walk Through Paris is sometimes a work of urbanism, sometimes a subversive history book, sometimes a kind of tourist guide. - Geoff Nicholson, LA Review of Books
