The beloved French modern classic hailed as "the most poignant love story of our time" by Raymond Queneau
The story is simple: Boy meets girl; boy marries girl; girl falls ill on their honeymoon with a water lily on the lung, which can only be treated by being surrounded by flowers; boy goes broke desperately trying to keep his true love alive.
First published in 1947, Mood Indigo perfectly captures the feverishly creative, melancholy romance of mid-century Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Recently voted number ten on Le Monde's list of the 100 Books of the Century (the top ten also included works by Camus, Proust, Kafka, Hemingway, and Steinbeck), Boris Vian's novel has been an icon of French literature for fifty years―the avant-garde, populist masterpiece by one of twentieth-century Paris's most intriguing cultural figures, a touchstone for generations of revolutionary young people, a jazz-fueled, science-fiction-infused, sexy, fantastical, nouveau-decadent tear-jerker that has charmed and beguiled hundreds of thousands of readers around the world.
'Your heart will be broken. You will be confused and confounded. You will laugh aloud. And at least for a time, however hard you try, your own world will refuse to be what you think it is.' ― LA Times
'The most heartbreakingly poignant modern love story ever written' -- Raymond Queneau
About the Author
Boris Vian (1920-59) was a French writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. Best remembered for L'Écume des jours (translated into English by Stanley Chapman as Froth on the Daydream and renamed Mood Indigo to tie in with the film, starring Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou), Vian's work is characterised by the dazzling wordplay and surreal plots which made him a cult figure in 1960s France and beyond.
Stanley Chapman was a British architect, designer, writer, and translator, most notably of Vian (Mood Indigo) and Raymond Queneau. He was the founder of Outrapo and a member of Oulipo, the Collège de ’Pataphysique (of which Vian was also a member), and the Lewis Carroll Society. He died in 2009.
