As one of the primary forces behind transition, Maria Jolas helped introduce the world to the twentieth-century’s literary avant-garde, among them Gertrude Stein, Archibald MacLeish, Allen Tate, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, William Carlos Williams, and James Joyce. A skillful translator, Jolas is renowned for her renderings of Gaston Bachelard’s philosophical texts, Nathalie Sarraute’s novels and plays, and works by Joyce. In addition, Jolas founded an influential school, the Ecole Bilingue in France, and the celebrated Cantine La Marseillaise in New York.
Jolas’s memoir traces her childhood in Louisville, her studies to be a professional singer, and her introduction to Eugene through the pianist Jacques Jolas. Describing a busy family life that centered on two daughters—Betsy, who became a famous composer, and Tina, an accomplished archaeologist and translator—Jolas recalls the difficulties of living in France during the German occupation, the family’s relocation to the United States, and her postwar activism.
Caws supplements Jolas’s memoir with the memoirist’s radio addresses, lectures to French and American audiences, journal entries from Paris and New York, and letters to her husband. The memoir Jolas completed at age eighty, coupled with these documents, gives voice to a woman whose legacy has too often been effaced by that of her colorful husband and their famous friends.
