If there is one lover that Marguerite Duras will never forget or betray, it is her works, created through her passion for life, her literary talent, and her wondrous command of language.
- La Nouvelle Observateur

In Duras's work, death and suffering are the web of text.
- Julia Kristeva

A poor childhood in Vietnam and a mad love affair with a Chinese man
An autobiographical novel that brings those hazy images back to life with delicate and vivid descriptions.

『The Lover』 by Marguerite Duras, a representative female writer of modern French literature, has been published by Minumsa.
This work, published after Duras overcame the pain of liver cirrhosis and alcoholism that came with her in her later years, is an autobiographical novel based on her childhood experiences in the exotic environment of Vietnam. It not only became a hot topic in the literary world as soon as it was published in 1984, but also won the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious literary award in France.
Professor Kim In-hwan, who introduced 『The Lover』 to Korea in 1984 with a translation that most closely captured the sensibilities of women at the time, has once again presented 『The Lover』 for this era in 2007 with his skills honed through 20 years of research on French female writers.

This 'work of sensuality', which became even more famous after being made into a film of the same name by director Jean-Jacques Annaud in 1992, has firmly established itself as a 'work of the nouveau roman' in French literary circles due to Duras's unique writing style, and is studied as an important work in the history of modern literature.
For hungry readers who want to savor the film's lingering impact and experience more of Duras beyond the film, this publication will be a welcome relief.

Childhood memories that surface in moments of pain

"The Lover" is the first novel published by Duras after she regained her health from suffering from liver cirrhosis and alcoholism.
"From a very young age, when I was eighteen or fifteen, my face was already showing signs of the disfigurement that alcohol would wreak upon me in middle age," and "I started drinking like everyone else, but I started too early because my curiosity was so strong," are the kind of words that appear in "The Lover," showing that Duras was a writer who spent every day close to alcohol.

In 1982, Duras, finally at the point where he could no longer write, was admitted to a hospital in Neuilly, and during this time of suffering, the most fond memory of his life came back to him as a hazy memory of his childhood from over 50 years ago.
Those days were sad but above all beautiful memories for Duras, and because they were beautiful, they were all the more sad a longing.

As soon as she recovered and recovered, Duras wrote a book titled "The Lover" about her memories of her poor life in Vietnam and her first love with a Chinese man.
This work, which was also the starting point of a new life for her, won the Prix Goncourt in the year it was published and was translated into 35 countries, making her a world-renowned author.
Duras, who had always based her work on her own experiences, entered a new phase in her life and career with “The Lover.”

A translation that captures the delicate sensibilities of women

In 1984, when Duras won the Prix Goncourt, Professor Kim In-hwan of Ewha Womans University introduced “The Lover” to Korea with a translation that most closely captured Duras’s unique delicate and vivid sensibility while understanding the psychology of women.
Since then, in addition to 『The Lover』, he has translated other works by Duras, such as 『All Day in the Woods』 and 『The Man Sitting in the Hallway』, and has studied French female writers, including Duras.
With his skills honed over the past 20 years, Professor Kim In-hwan presented "The Lover" in a new and modern way in 2007, preserving the original work's sensibility.

Duras, who wrote "The Lover" in her 70s, and Professor Kim In-hwan, who translated "The Lover" again at the age of approaching 70.
As a translator and as a woman, my emotions have become closer and my expressions more colorful than before.

A writer of the nouveau roman with more than just sensuality

The girl's face used as the cover art for "The Lover" is more famous than the work itself.
This photo, which shows a man staring straight ahead with an indifferent expression, is the poster used by director Jean-Jacques Annaud in his 1992 film adaptation of "The Lover" with the same name.
This film, which boldly depicts a scene of love between a French girl and a Chinese man, amplified curiosity about the original author, Duras, and earned her the epithet of “author of sensuality.”
However, the adjective 'sensual' alone is not enough to describe the writer 'Duras'.

Unlike movies, novels are filled with short paragraphs that transcend multiple times and spaces.
While the film unfolds sequentially, focusing on the relationship between a French girl and a Chinese man, the novel is a mixture of the author's childhood in Vietnam, his time back in France interacting with prominent figures in the literary and academic world, and his present, now wrinkled with age.
In "The Lover," Duras hoped to complete the big picture of "life" by piecing together the scattered fragments of memory, one by one, in short paragraphs that transcend various times and spaces.

For her, life itself was a 'longing for love', and she sought to realize that longing through writing that broke down the boundaries between past and present, fiction and reality.
This unique writing style earned Duras another important epithet in literary history: not only “author of sensuality” but also “author of the nouveau roman.”