From Paris, Stéphane Manel

Size : 175 x 225 mm

Softcover

192 pages

color, black and white

published by Stéphane Manel

“To challenge Paris is to challenge a monument. I have neither the desire nor the audacity to do so. Therefore, I prefer to focus on the small pebbles, on the details, on what is buried or the fragments remaining on the surface. On the geographical and mnemonic 'underlayers,' on history and small stories. Perhaps I am more comfortable with what I have lived, or what someone has confided in me. Or perhaps with what I thought I saw while observing building facades, listening beyond doors, reading books, and looking at phone books or old scraps of paper drifting across bridges in the wind. Walking. Looking back.”

In this book, Stéphane Manel showcases his dual talent as an illustrator and storyteller, inviting us on a highly personal stroll through the districts of Paris.
Filled with rich allusions to literature, art, music, and cinema, and haunted by numerous figures from Gérard de Nerval to Alberto Giacometti, Pierre Le-Tan, Georges Perec, Jacques Mesrine, and Salvador Dalí, he traverses eras, retracing streets and squares, boulevards and tree-lined avenues illuminated by the light of memory—on foot, by taxi, moped, and subway.