Matthew Fraser

Stepping into Smith & Son bookshop across from the Tuileries, my first instinct is to look for signs of change. A regular customer for decades, this is my first time here since its rebranding. The ground floor storeroom is brightly lit and pleasantly appointed. On the front-of-store table display, I recognise several titles, including Deborah Levy’s My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein, John of John by Douglas Stuart, and Jennette McCurdy’s Half His Age. Immediately to the left, a cozy nook decorated with William Morris wallpaper is furnished with a soft purple sofa for customers to sit down with a book. Queen Elizabeth II looks down regally from an official portrait on the wall.

The best time to visit Provence, I always advise when asked, is in the spring before the scorching heat and summer crowds. I have been spending time in the south of France since the early 1990s. Provence was fashionable in those days. Peter Mayle’s massively successful book, A Year in Provence, inspired thousands to pull up stakes and move to southern France to emulate his idyllic life in the Luberon hills. Some settled farther west in the Dordogne, famously called ‘Dordogneshire’ for its concentration of British expats. Mayle became a one-man publishing industry, following up with sequels including Toujours Provence and Encore Provence.

A strange literary coincidence occurred in Paris exactly 40 years ago, on 14 April, 1986.  In the small hours of the morning, Jean Genet, enfant terrible of French literature, tripped on a step leading to the toilet in his tiny Left Bank hotel room. He fell forward and fatally smashed his head on the tile floor. Several hours later, feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir expired in a Paris hospital only a few blocks away. Two French literary legends were dead. They had died within hours of each other in the same district of Paris.  Jean Genet and Simone de Beauvoir were bonded by more than the dramatic unity of their final act. They had been close friends for more than four decades. Their connection was Jean-Paul Sartre.