An intimate portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke's life and art in interwar Paris by his friend and translator, offering unparalleled insight into the creative process A stunningly written, deeply personal biography that’s also a master class in the art of translation, perfect for fans of: Richard Holmes, Lydia Davis, Kate Briggs and Julian Green From walks in the Luxembourg Garden to letters describing tea with an irascible Tolstoy, Rainer Maria Rilke's French translator, Maurice Betz, enjoyed a rare intimacy with the great poet. This book, inspired by their time working together on the 1st French translation of Rilke's only novel, invites the reader into that friendship, offering glimpses of Rilke's creative process and the glittering cultural scene of interwar Paris. Betz first came to Rilke as an admirer, carrying a book of his poems in his kit bag while serving as a soldier in World War I. No other writer meant so much to him, and Rilke would come to mean even more once their fruitful partnership began, lasting until the poet's death in 1926. Together they spent the spring and summer of 1925 editing Betz’s translation of The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge , a painstaking process interrupted by companionable walks through the streets of Paris and vivaciously told anecdotes from the poet’s starry social world. This elegant and poignant look at the great writer's final years, drawn from Betz's memories and the letters Rilke sent from his travels across Europe, provides a portrait of a brilliant mind, an evocation of a lost world, and a testament to an enduring friendship. Maurice Betz (1898-1946) was a writer and prolific translator of Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann. He worked closely with Rilke on the French translations of his works while Rilke was alive, and continued translating the poet into French in the decades following his death. Will Stone is a poet, essayist and literary translator of French, Franco-Belgian and German literature. Will's previous translations include Rilke in Paris , also by Maurice Betz, several works by Stefan Zweig, and poems by Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke, all available from Pushkin Press. This first meeting with Rilke in Paris in early 1925 is the result of a correspondence which began with Betz pluckily writing to Rilke over the winter of 1922–23 to gain permission to translate an excerpt from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge , for inclusion in a special issue of Les Contemporains . From his chosen sequestration, the remote Château de Muzot in the Valais region of Switzerland, Rilke replies positively. This is not a given, since Rilke is very particular about who translates his work and even more so into French, his most treasured language. However, he had been impressed with the poems in Betz’s Scafelati pour troupes , which the young translator had gamely included with his appeal. Furthermore, Betz, without his knowledge, has also been recommended to Rilke as an able translator from German by one Inga Junghanns, a singer who had not only once performed for Rilke but also had taken it upon herself to translate the Notebooks into her native Danish. Rilke is further persuaded when Betz’s translated excerpt in Les Contemporains reaches his hands in July 1923 and appears to honour the original. Endorsed by his author, an exuberant Betz is keen to proceed and translate the remainder of the Notebooks , which hitherto had only received the attention of André Gide. The relationship between Rilke and Gide is worthy of a book in itself, and their correspondence between 1909 and 1926 offers a wealth of insights. In these always cordial and genuinely respect- ful exchanges both men show interest, at least on the surface, in translating each other’s works, but in practice this endeavour was barely consummated and was perhaps more of a token effort, an authentic desire lacking application. Perceptive to the work’s credentials as an opulent contribution to early-twentieth-century literature rather than a vestige of nineteenth-century romanticism, Gide had published several pages of his own translation of the Cahiers in La Nouvelle Revue Française in 1911. Rilke was thrilled and impressed with Gide’s effort and returned the favour by translat- ing the Frenchman’s short story of 1907, ‘Le Retour de l’enfant prodigue’. The act of literary translation always underscored the friendship and mutual respect between these two writers of stat- ure. This collegiality extended into Rilke’s early years at Muzot and beyond. Gide expressed a desire for Rilke and no other to translate his prose poem Nourritures terrestres from 1897, but Rilke was obliged to tactfully decline as he was then fully engaged with completing the Duino Elegies and could not afford to be distracted. Furthermore, he had the previous autumn started translating the poems of Paul Valéry. Though his letters to Gide allowed Rilke to develop his command of the French language,