First publication in English of France's most successful contemporary playwright
 Don Juan on Trial: 'Brilliant dialogue' (Le Figaro); The Visitor: 'An overwhelming triumph ...a masterpiece' (Paris Match); 'Sharp, biting, unexpected and cunning' Le Figaro; Enigma Variations: 'Schmitt...writes with extreme cunning...a brilliant author' (Le Monde); 'Simple, shattering and witty. A play full of surprises' (L'Express); Between Worlds: Schmitt's eighth play is a metaphysical comedy set in the 'Two Worlds Hotel', where those in a coma come to stay while their medical dramas unfold back amongst the living."I have been looking for a play like this for the last twenty years" (Alain Delon of Enigma Variations)

Schmitt Plays: 1: Don Juan on Trial; The Visitor; Enigma Variations; Between Worlds (Contemporary Dramatists)

Literature & Fiction

Schmitt, Éric-Emmanuel

Dramas & Plays

Methuen Drama

Internationally acclaimed play of cross-cultural friendship 
 Paris in the 1960s. Thirteen-year-old Moses lives in the shadow of his less-than loving father. When he's caught stealing from wise old shopkeeper Monsieur Ibrahim, he discovers an unlikely friend and a whole new world. Together they embark on a journey that takes them from the streets of Paris to the whirling dervishes of the Golden Crescent.
This delightful, moving play has already been a huge hit in Paris and New York. Performed in thirteen countries and published in twelve languages, it is also an award-winning film starring Omar Sharif.
Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Qur'an received its Uk premiere at the Bush Theatre on 17 January 2006.

Monsieur Ibrahim And The Flowers (Modern Plays)

THE STORY: Nobel Prize-winning author Abel Znorko lives as a recluse on a remote island in the Norwegian Seas. For fifteen years, his one friend and soulmate has been Helen, from whom he has been physically separated for the majority of their affai

Enigma Variations

History & Criticism

Dramatist's Play Service

Stories from the bestselling author of The Most Beautiful Book in the World, “a prodigious storyteller with a style both elegant and assured” (Les Echos). In this collection’s opening story, a woman with more skeletons in the closet than most falls in love with a parish priest, to whom she confesses her sins. But her motives and her intentions are anything but honorable or pious. The title story is the tale of two friends and rivals whose differences will at first lead to a terrifying and near fatal accident, and then to a vendetta lasting a lifetime. In “The Return,” while away at sea, a father is told that one of his four daughters has died but not which. He will ask himself the question no father should have to ask: which child would he want dead? His long ruminations will lead him to a realization of his failings as a man and a father and ultimately toward a touching transformation. “Love at the Elysée Palace” is as fine a short story as any in contemporary literature, and one that treats the themes of love, marriage, and forgiveness with superb delicacy and remarkable tenderness. In this vivid collection, Schmitt writes about regret and redemption, about the roles of love and memory in our lives, all with a lightness and compassion that is as rare as it is inspiring. “A wonderful book of remarkable everyday heroes who will haunt readers for a long time to come.”―L’Express “A small masterpiece.”―Le Parisien

Concerto to the Memory of an Angel

Literary

Europa Editions

Anna, Hanna, and Anny. Three young women, free spirits all, each one at odds with the age in which they live. Despite the centuries that divide them, their stories intersect—a surprising narrative technique that lends increasing tension and richness to this novel, which builds to a thrilling crescendo of unexpected revelations. Anne lives in Flanders in the sixteenth century. She’s a mystic who talks with animals like Saint Francis; she finds God in nature and cannot understand the need for religious rituals. Yet her ideas run against the temper of the times. It is the age of the counterreformation and the Inquisition. Her serenity and the loose tongues of those who secretly envy her, result in her being branded a heretic, with tragic consequences. Hanna lives in Vienna at the start of the twentieth century. She is a young noblewoman, dissatisfied with bourgeois conventions, who undertakes a journey of self-discovery. After much sadness she will find a method for uncovering the roots of her malaise in a new cure developed by a Viennese doctor by the name of Sigmund Freud. Anny is a Hollywood star of the 2000s. Addicted to celebrity and to variety of illicit substances she is searching for meaning in world where the only apparent thing of any value is money. Both her curse and her solace, acting will give her the key to a open a new chapter in her life where she will find love, companionship, and the meaning she has been searching for.

Three Women in a Mirror

Contemporary

Five unforgettable stories. “What a delight when a writer hits his target as deftly and with such beauty as Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt does in Invisible Love”(New York Journal of Books). In this latest collection, two young lovers secretly love the child they will never be able to have; an esteemed physician and survivor of the Nazi concentration camps finds inner peace thanks to the love of a faithful dog; a man loves his wife through the memories of her first husband; and a mother rediscovers love for her child when someone tries to take that child from her. And finally, Séverine and Benjamin understand that they have lost the love of their lives when they see themselves through the eyes of a young terminally ill girl. Love is not easy, and not always easy to find; at times, it is obliged to circumvent social norms, and thus transform them; it must be desired, sought, defended. We cannot know what life has in store for us, but we do know that whatever it is, it will only be meaningful if borne on the wings of love. Schmitt’s sublime stories remind us how true this is.Praise for Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt “There is a surprising sweetness to Schmitt’s stories of redemption and reconciliation. They carry a slight pleasant aftertaste, a lingering hint of delight.”―The Boston Globe “Schmitt’s stories capture a quirky, clever, feminist, very French sensibility.”―Publishers Weekly “Moral fables, gilded mini-legends: Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s stories are fiendishly efficient. Schmitt is a prodigious story-teller with a style both elegant and assured.”―Les Echos

Invisible Love

From the international bestselling author: “An inventively gratifying libertine comedy of errors . . . This monumental novel is satisfying at all turns” (Foreword Reviews). The Carousel of Desire is a sexual and romantic saga told with a master storyteller’s feel for character and plot and a philosopher’s abiding preoccupation with what makes life truly worthwhile. With tenderness and infectious delight, Schmitt tells an exuberant tale about class and community and about the vastness of human experience. Schmitt’s love of coincidence and serendipity is surpassed only by his affection for his flawed, all-too-human characters: Zachary Bidermann, the powerful European Union commissioner; Faustina, the fashionable book publicist; François-Maxime de Couvigny, the happily married banker with more than a few secrets; Marcelle, enamored with a handsome illegal immigrant; Mademoiselle Beauvert, who makes love with her parrot, Copernicus. These and many more unforgettable characters animate this story of simmering desire and the antics of the mischievous and playful god Eros. Schmitt’s inclusive, affirming vision of human sexuality is refreshingly free of moral judgment, yet enriched by an understanding of the complex ethics of human relationships and the redemptive power of love. “A narrative tour de force. Liberated, libertine, libertarian. A brilliant celebration of sexual and moral tolerance.”―La Provence “A terrific encyclopedia of love and desire. A beautiful novel, at once light, funny, and somber.”―L’Express “One of Mr. Schmitt’s chief strengths is the ability to precisely chronicle the shifts in his characters’ mental and emotional states, a skill he employs to illuminate the changeable nature of the mind and heart.”―Electric Literature

The Carousel of Desire

Oscar and the Lady in Pink

ATLANTIC BOOKS *

The international bestselling story collection. “Truth and beauty are here brought together with all the visual beauty and power of a major literary work” (Lire Magazine, France). A cast of extravagant and affecting characters lovingly portrayed by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt animates these eight contemporary fables about people in search of happiness. One of Europe's most popular and bestselling authors, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt captivates the reader with his spirited style and enchanting stories that move effortlessly from the everyday to the fantastical. The eight stories in this collection, his first to be published in English, represent his best and most imaginative storylines: from the touching and surprising love story between Balthazar, a wealthy author, and Odette, a shop clerk, to the tale of a barefooted princess; from the moving title story about a group of female prisoners in a Soviet gulag to the entertaining portrait of a perennially disgruntled perfectionist. Behind each story lies a simple, if elusive, truth: though we may be frequently blind to it, happiness is often right in front of our eyes.

The Most Beautiful Book in the World: 8 Novellas

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

In his new collection of stories, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, author of The Most Beautiful Book in the World, probes the paradox that the events that shape our lives are often the stuff of dreams, yet nonetheless true. Humor, tenderness, irony, and exquisite writing have always been the hallmarks of Schmitt’s work. Here, he adds a pinch of philosophy. In one story, a lovelorn writer seeks refuge in Ostende, a remote and charming town on the North Sea. His host is a solitary and eccentric octogenarian. The fairy-tale setting starts to work its magic and the old woman begins to tell her tale—an extraordinary story of passion. Bewitched by what he hears, the writer can no longer distinguish what is real from what is not, and in the woman’s account he will finally find a response to his own deep-seated grief. Here, as in the other stories in this collection, Schmitt displays the combination of stylishness and insight into the human condition that prompted Kirkus Reviews to write of his tales that they “echo Maupassant’s with their lean narratives, surprise endings, mordant humor and psychological acuity.” An exceptional collection by one of Europe’s most beloved authors.

The Woman with the Bouquet

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Books by Schmitt, Éric-Emmanuel