ABSTRACT
During the 1990s, Julien Green (1900–1998) made a comeback in English-speaking countries. Several of his sixty-odd books were translated for the first time, while earlier, forgotten, translations were revised and reissued. A prolific writer born in Paris to American parents, Green was both a curiosity and an institution in French literature. Raised in Paris but educated at the University of Virginia, Green chose to write in French. Many of his novels were bestsellers in France; his multi-volume Journal is considered a classic of the genre, though it should be eclipsed, in critics’ analyses, by Louis Calaferte’s Carnets (sixteen volumes, 1980–2010). Green was the first foreign member ever elected to the Académie Française.
