Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City (repost)

Written mainly during the 1940s, Paris Noir reveals some of the darker quarters of Paris on the Left Bank, centered on the Place Mauberge and Rue Mouffetard. At the time of the Occupation and just afterwards Yonnet describes Paris between the wars – well known from film noir – but now disappeared. Yonnet concentrates on the people, rather than places, a mixture of ordinary workers, tradesmen, artists, con-men and criminals. He invests the area with a sense of mystery, including occasional supernatural events. It is extremely well-written, often using the language and sang of the locals. For Dedalus it is the perfect counterfoil for J.K.Huysmans Parisian Sketches (2005), which showed the darker side of Paris pre Haussman’s grand boulevards.
• Cover picture by famous French photographer Robert Doisneau.
• Available for the first time in English.