Conversations with Rilke

By Maurice Betz
Translated by Will Stone

"I owe Betz infinite gratitude…a first-rate poet, a creative spirit, and a friend to all creative spirits…an ornament to literary France…an artist with words, lovable and worthy of love" – Thomas Mann

"Maurice Betz is one of those artists whose importance only fully appears after they have disappeared" – Marcel Aymé

"The Betz translation of The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge constituted a conversation, even a confidence. And this is what makes its perfection so vital. Rilke is more present there than any author translated from book to book. For here was a translation from heart to heart" –Jean Cassou

Walking in the Luxembourg Garden, describing encounters with enigmatic diva Eleonora Duse or an irascible Tolstoy: Rainer Maria Rilke’s French translator Maurice Betz enjoyed a rare intimacy with the great poet. This account of their collaborative translation of Rilke’s only novel brings the reader along on a tour of the glittering cultural scene of interwar Paris.

An elegant, poignant look at the great writer’s final years, Betz’s memoir, sensitively translated by Will Stone, is a portrait of genius, an evocation of a lost world, and a testament to enduring friendship.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe.

Paperback
224 pages
Pushkin Press, 2025
Originally published in 1937
5.1 x 7.8 inches
ISBN 9781805330288
Essays, German Literature