Description

'One of the finest and most original prose stylists of her age' COLM TÓIBÍN
'She cannot write a dull page' FINANCIAL TIMES
'A writer who teaches us how to live' PARIS REVIEW

Born into German aristocracy with a Jewish family, Sybille Bedford lived through two world wars by marrying a gay Englishman to escape Nazi persecution. She had to wait until she was forty-one to have her first book published, but her work - including the modern classic novels Jigsaw and A Legacy - went on to secure her reputation as one of the most original and exacting prose stylists of the twentieth century.

This carefully edited selection of letters shows that extraordinary writer like never before. Spanning the 1930s to the 1980s, the correspondence follows her across France, wartime America, Italy, Mexico and London.

Often written on the move, these letters - impulsively scratched onto thin, green typing paper - capture a life never anchored in one place. They show a great writer wrestling with self-doubt, heartache, creative blocks and ill-health. But, above all, they tell the story of her great loves, with many addressed to three women with whom she had romantic relationships. As she famously said, she would have written more, had she loved less.

Full of warmth, affection, honesty and wit, Please, Do Write offers a window into the life and work of a writer - and a woman - in transit.