Golden Years by the Seine

Author: Ran Hua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: Some are dedicated to creating visual art, leaving behind exquisite photographs and films for future generations, such as the paintings of Gertrude Stein; writers and literary giants gather here, writing countless masterpieces that have left their mark on Western literature, such as Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Dos Passos's U.S.A. Trilogy, Bonsignore's Woodstock at Night, Pound's Cantos, and Stein's The Making of Americans. This book tells the story of such a vibrant group of Americans who lived in Paris at the turn of the 20th century. These expatriates came from different cities and towns, some rich, some poor, some heterosexual, some homosexual; some were top students from Harvard or Princeton, while others barely graduated from high school. Many of them lived lives of excess and indulgence, with one prominent figure being the legendary Natalie Barney, now ninety-six years old; another representative was Harry Crosby, who took his own life at the age of thirty-one. They were a group of young, bold, and self-expressive individuals; yet anthropologists defined them as "the lost generation."