Les Invités de Marcel Proust

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Elyane Dezon-Jones

Murder Chez Proust

Estelle Monbrun is the nom de plume of a university professor, Elyane Dezon-Jones, who taught at Barnard college and Washington University. She served as the editor-in-chief of Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Marcel Proust for seven years, and has published critical editions of Proust’s Le Côté de Guermantes (Flammarion, 1987) and Du côté de chez Swann (Hachette Livre de poche classique, 1992). She is also the author of Marie de Gournay: Fragments d’un discours féminin (Jose Corti, 1988) and one of the editors of Marguerite Yourcenar’s Correspondence for Éditions Gallimard.

In 1994, Editions Viviane Hamy published her Meurtre chez Tante Léonie, which has been translated in ten languages; the English title is Murder chez Proust. A parody of the mystery genre, Murder chez Proust enjoyed a succès de scandale, as was reported in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and numerous European newspapers. In Le Monde, René de Ceccatty praised the book as a clever mix of works by Agatha Christie and David Lodge. As sequels to Murder chez Proust, Estelle Monbrun published Meurtre à Petite Plaisance, (Chez Marguerite Yourcenar in Northeast Harbor, Maine), Meurtre chez Colette (in collaboration with Anaïs Coste) and Meurtre à Isla negra (Chez Pablo Neruda in Chile). Dividing her time between Paris and Sarasota, she is currently working on a play and a new novel.

Click each picture to enlarge and to view covers of Estelle Monbrun’s mysteries, published in multiple languages

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Testimonials

  • The course is WONDERFUL. You simply cannot appreciate how it has enhanced my reading. I felt fairly alone at time, en face de Proust. This course has opened up a world which I sensed, but which I can now piece together.

    Barbara Pilsbury

  • Your lectures have widened my understanding and given me new things to think about. My sincere thanks to you and to Nic. This course has obviously been a labor of love for you two as the course fee is in no way proportionate to the service provided by you.

    Cathy Lamb

  • I am enjoying your fascinating first lecture.

    Peter Albert McKay

  • Thank you, Bill. I am just getting started, have always wanted to read Proust but felt I needed a structured environment. What a great thing for you to do.

    Denise Middlebrooks

  • Enjoying the course—well done. This was my second reading of Proust and to be able to do this within the context of a course gave me so much more than reading it alone. This was fun!

    Deborah Hendel

  • Just writing to tell you that I am loving doing the course—and finally reading Proust properly, something I have wanted to do since living in Paris many years ago. Your guidance, intimate knowledge, and passion for Proust are inspirational.

    Brita Lomba