“I loved her [Gilberte]; I was sorry not to have had the time and the inspiration to insult her, to hurt her, to force her to keep some memory of me. I thought her so beautiful that I should have liked to be able to retrace my steps so as to shake my fist at her and shout, "I think you're hideous, grotesque; how I loathe you!"_”

French novelist, literary critic, and essayist

Marcel Proust was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist. He is best known for À la recherche du temps perdu, the seven-volume novel published between 1913 and 1927. That work runs to around 1.25 million words and secured his place among the most influential writers of the twentieth century, according to critics and fellow authors. His reputation rests above all on this long, closely observed novel and on his wider influence on modern literature.