Simply one of the greatest books ever written about young women, sex and going-nowhere love. Just heart-rendingly beautiful. Smart. Precise. Full of deltas and rivers and French colonial heat. The Lover moves me beyond words. I can't even form real sentences about how much I love this book.
— Madeleine
What a shimmering novel about an affair in defiance of the reigning taboos in French colonial society in Vietnam. Duras writes of the self-determination that emerges from a curious mix of power dynamics, lust, discovery, and betrayal. "Either [desire] was there at first glance or else it had never been. It was instant...or it was nothing." And this book, dear reader, is certainly not about nothing
— KatA sensational international bestseller, and winner of Frances' coveted Prix Goncourt, 'The Lover' is an unforgettable portrayal of the incandescent relationship between two lovers, and of the hate that slowly tears the girl's family apart.
Saigon, 1930s: a poor young French girl meets the elegant son of a wealthy Chinese family. Soon they are lovers, locked into a private world of passion and intensity that defies all the conventions of their society.
A sensational international bestseller, 'The Lover' is disturbing, erotic, masterly and simply unforgettable.