Zombie Proust by Jerome Prieur

“Marcel Proust passed away on the 18th of November. It was 1922. One day, I

could no longer resist: I went in search of him. I prowled about, I

visited the rooms where he had lived, I walked in his footsteps. The

brilliant writer was concealing a doppelgänger, and I pursued him as though tracking down a missing relative.” — Jérôme Prieur

What is a writer’s life, and above all, what is left of it? 

This book is not a biography, but a quest; an expedition to unearth what remains of the author of Remembrance of Things Past. What was it like to be in his remarkable presence? What was it like to be inside his skin—especially during his final years of intense reclusive absorption in the writing of his great book? 

Haunted places and abandoned sets, rare photographs, tinpot relics, half-erased fingerprints, flashes of light, piles of little memories serve as talismans through which Jérôme Prieur materialises the eponymous writer’s body and spirit in short, vivid chapters that resemble prose poems. Rich in detail, wry humour and quirky erudition, Zombie Proust brings back to life the invisible being, recalling his image as one summons a ghost.