To read any work by Pascal Quignard, whether fiction or non-fiction, is to experience philosophical and literary reflections on sex, love, shadows, art and death. A Terrace in Rome, his novella which won the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française prize in 2000, explores all of his most favored themes and images via the fictional story of Geoffroy Meaume, a 17th Century engraving artist whose illicit love for a woman causes him horrible disfiguration, pain and suffering. The year is 1639 when twenty-one-year-old Meaume, serving an apprenticeship as an engraver, first lays his eyes on Nanni, the eighteen-year-old blond beauty who is betrothed by her father to another man. For a while Meaume is happily absorbed in this secret affair and playing in umbra voluptatis (in the shadow of desire.) Each of the forty-seven chapters in the book are succinct – most are only a page or two—as Quignard is a master at composing a tightly woven narrative which lends the feeling that every word, every character, every image has been carefully placed on the page and is of the utmost importance. For those who are new to Quignard’s philosophical and roving style of writing, A Terrace in Rome is a perfect first, short piece to begin an exploration of his writings. 

Originally published in French as Terasse à Rome, Gallimard Editions, 2000. First translated into English by Douglas Penick and Charles Re, Wakefield Press, 2016