Catherine Cusset

Catherine Cusset has read and reread À la recherche du temps perdu. Part novel, part essay, Ma vie avec Marcel Proust sheds light on a number of episodes in the life of the Cabourg-born writer that echo Catherine Cusset's own.

Proust thought he had no literary talent and wanted to give up writing, citing his intellectual nullity. A three-time reader ofÀ la recherche du temps perdu, Catherine Cusset experienced it at fifteen as the great novel of love, at twenty as the great novel of society, and at fifty as the great novel of writing.

After discovering many biographical similarities with the writer, Catherine Cusset drew a life lesson from him: "Proust is my bible and my human and literary model". Her successive readings revealed to her the search for truths, the understanding of beings and teachings. Her intimate and profound account is also an ingenious exploration of Marcel Proust's emotional, social and literary universe. This interview comments on a funny, intense book and, above all, makes you want to read or reread it.