cover image A Literary Guide to Provence

A Literary Guide to Provence

Daniel Vitaglione. Swallow Press, $29.95 (259pp) ISBN 978-0-8040-1035-1

Provence has enthralled centuries of writers, from the troubadours, Petrarch, Nostradamus and Frederic Mistral to Sade, Flaubert, Camus, Cather, Beckett and Woolf. Daniel Vitaglione (A Dictionary of Idioms: French-American, American-French), who lives in the region, tracks its eminent history in A Literary Guide to Provence. He provides information both practical (hotels and restaurants) and cultural (festival listings), plus some background on the region's language, Proven al, still spoken ""in remote villages and among the older population."" Even better, however, Vitaglione provides a town-by-town tour of literary-historical sites: the abandoned monastery outside of Saint-Tropez, for example, where Guy de Maupassant encountered an elderly couple who had been in hiding since their youthful elopement. 15 maps, 35 b&w photos; 36 color photos not seen by PW. ( Sept.)