Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is the author of three luminous collections of short stories published by Europa Editions, including the bestselling Most Beautiful Book in the World, and the novel, Three Women in a Mirror. The questions at the center of all of these delightful works is the same: What is happiness and how do we attain it?
In this latest collection, two young lovers secretly adore the child they can never 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.