Paris

Julian Green was born to American parents in Paris in 1900, and spent most of his life in the French capital. Paris is an extraordinary, lyrical love letter to the city, taking the reader on an imaginative journey around its secret stairways, courtyards, alleys and hidden places. Whether evoking the cool of a deserted church on a hot summer's day, remembering Notre Dame in a winter storm in 1940, describing chestnut trees lit up at night like 'Japanese lanterns' or lamenting the passing of street cries and old buildings, his book is filled with unforgettable imagery. It is a meditation on getting lost and wasting time, and on what it truly means to know a city.

Julian Green was born in Paris in 1900 and spent most of his extraordinary literary career there, writing in French for a wide European readership. He published over sixty-five books in France, including novels, essays, plays and fourteen volumes of his journal. In addition, he published five celebrated books in the United States. During the First World War, Green served in the American Red Cross and then in the French Army; during the Second World War, he worked at the US Office of War Information, broadcasting to France on the radio. As an American, Julian Green gained the honour of being the only foreign member of the Academie Francaise. He died in Paris in 1998. Lila Azam Zanganeh was born in Paris. She has taught literature, cinema and Romance languages at Harvard University and now writes and lives mainly in New York City.