One of the most important literary figures in France, Marguerite Duras won international acclaim after she was awarded the 1984 Prix Goncourt for her autobiographical novel L'Amant (translated almost immediately into English as The Lover). Although Duras had been writing fiction and directing films for over forty years, she was always considered a rather inaccessible author by the general public. The publication of L'Amant sparked interest in all her work, which was speedily republished to meet the overwhelming demand. Featured in numerous interviews on television and in popular magazines in France, Duras became something of a national literary phenomenon. The Lover, elegantly translated by Barbara Bray, won the Ritz Paris Hemingway Award in 1986, and, in the United States, the cover article of the New York Times Book Review (23 June 1985) featured an elogious review of the novel, comparing it, in terms of popularity and interest for an American reader, to...