The Kiss to the Leper
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Intermediate to advanced French learners who want to improve their reading with original French texts
- Readers studying twentieth-century French literature and Mauriac's work
- Readers of serious fiction who prefer compact works with delicate psychological portrayal
- Literature enthusiasts interested in themes of family, marriage, and faith
Not a good fit for
- French beginners, since the original text lacks annotations and vocabulary support
- Readers who prefer light entertainment fiction and are uncomfortable with heavy themes
- Readers who need a Chinese translation or a bilingual edition
Reading tips
- First learn about the French social background of Mauriac's era; this will make the text easier to understand.
- Prepare a French dictionary or a translation for reference; with long sentences, identify the main clause first, then appreciate the tone.
- The book is short; read it in two or three sessions, and after each session briefly note changes in the characters' relationships.
- After finishing, revisit the symbolic meaning of "kiss" and "leper" in the title and sort out the thematic threads.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
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FAQ
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About the author
François Mauriac (1885–1970) was a French novelist, poet, playwright and journalist, and the winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Bordeaux, he was elected to the Académie française in 1933 and died in Paris in 1970. Rooted in the Catholic literary tradition, Mauriac often explored sin, grace and redemption against the backdrop of bourgeois family life, writing with an introspective restraint that focuses on his characters' inner moral struggles. His major works include Le Nœud de vipères, Thérèse Desqueyroux and Le Désert de l'amour; the collection also holds three of his works: Le baiser au lépreux, L'enfant chargé de chaînes and La chair et le sang. Public information on the details of his life and literary career is limited.
