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