From the Left Bank chronicles the intimate, behind-the-scenes encounters of an American Francophile and the stars of the French Avant Garde theater and literary worlds. It reflects the author's extensive, first-hand experience of the modern French theater and with those artists who wrote and staged the work that has revolutionized the way we think of theater. The book contains a distillation of Bishop's best original writings on such pivotal figures as Jean Cocteau, Jean-Louis Barrault, Eugne Ionesco, Jean Genet, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, and Albert Camus in theater and Claude Simon, Robert Pinget, Philippe Sollers, and Alain Robbe-Grillet in fiction. Bishop knew these creative artists personally, and his insightful analyses provide an informative, entertaining insider's look at the development and workings of the French Avant Garde.

Specialists in twentieth century French literature, novel, or theater, would find very informative, meaningful, discussions; novices or seekers of understanding of this period's literature would greatly benefit from reading about their specific artist , or orienting themselves to the literary period and development through Bishop's book. (The European Studies Journal)

Tom Bishop is the Florence Gould Professor of French Literature and the Chair of the Center for French Civilization and Culture at New York University. He was recently awarded the Grand Prix of the Acadmie Franaise.