The Nun by Denis Diderot
'You can leave a forest, but you can never leave a cloister; you are free in the forest, but you are a slave in the cloister.'Diderot's The Nun (La Religieuse) is the seemingly true story of a young girl forced by her parents to enter a convent and take holy orders. A novel mingling mysticism, madness, sadistic cruelty and nascent sexuality, it gives a scathing insight into the effects of forced vocations and the unnatural life of the convent. A succes de scandale at the end of the eighteenth century, it has attracted and unsettled readers ever since. For Diderot's novel is not simply a story of a young girl with a bad habit; it is also a powerfully emblematic fable about oppression and intolerance.This new translation includes Diderot's all-important prefatory material, which he placed, disconcertingly, at the end of the novel, and which turns what otherwise seems like an exercise in realism into what is now regarded as a masterpiece of proto-modernist fiction.
Russell Goulbourne's wide-ranging introduction shows clearly how the work's past significance and it present meaning are linked: Goulbourne's excellent translation maintains the reader's involvement without sacrificing accuracy* Times Literary Supplement *
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780199555246 |
| ISBN 10 | 0199555249 |
| Title | The Nun |
| Author | Denis Diderot |
| Series | Oxford World's Classics |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 2008-09-11 |
| Number of pages | 240 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |