This first English-language edition of En lisant en ecrivant will mark a turning point in the public reception of Julien Gracq. Here he emerges as the ideal critic, a reader who accompanies himself in his reading like a "polite third party."Every reader is a potential writer and every writer is a reader in actuality. Reading Writing is a subjective history of fiction and poetry and a personal meditation on the links between literature and two visual arts: painting and cinema. Gracq's poetics is founded upon the basic acts of reading and writing and on the relationship between the writer and his language.Born in 1910 in historic Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, where he lives today, Julien Gracq is one of France's eminent postwar writers. His oeuvre includes essays, criticism, journalism, and novels. Gracq is a majestic, retiring, and misunderstood figure in French literature. He refused the Goncourt Prize when it was awarded to him in 1951. Read Less