Literary Cafés of Paris by
You should bring with you this guide once in Paris.
The cafés you will discover here are absolutely known and they became a name also thanks to the permanence per days, hours, months of writers like Ernest Hemingway, Apollinaire, and many more.
The magic of Paris is also the possibility of spending time sat in a café per hours for writing, meeting friends and colleagues without to being disturbed or judged by anyone.
Creativity follows different paths from the one of a common work.
Noel Fitch loves to spend every summer in Paris where she is, she admits, a café-sitter.
Cafés are lazy places, where creativity is possible because a writer observes the existence of a lot of people in the while, their conversations, their moods, political ideas, gossip.
Let's remember in A Moveable Feast the beauty girl and Ernest Hemigway's reaction at the vision of her. A writer lives of suggestions, gestures, ideas, thoughts said by someone; an existential condition touched for just few seconds in most cases.
Parisienne Cafés are, writes the author, an intoxication of colors, smells.
They have their own function, apart to being choosen by writers and journalists: they sell coffee, cigarettes, newspapers; you find a telephone; stamps, postcards are found in a café tabac.
Introduced in France in the 17th century the first one was The Procope.
For just a coffee and a croissant you spend hours in a parisienne café, although of course, maybe you would want to change location and café during the day, depending by your appointments, and what you are planning to do, and also places you'll visit.
People can think that the time spent by an author in a café is waste time, while it is not.
There is time to sit and contemplate, to dream and observe life, writes Fitch.
It was in a café that Emile Zola wrote the famous essay called "J'accuse."
The café is not just a literary place but also a political one, playing a role in various fields of commerce as well.
Let's see now some of these cafés where, once in Paris you can spend all the time you want, listening, writing, creating, and staying relaxed with your fertile ideas in your mind.
Les Cafés des Deux-Magots founded in 1875 has seen around Oscar Wilde, Grant Wood; Picasso met here Dora Maar.
Le Bar du Pont-Royal has been objects of interestes from the authors of Editions Gallimard.
Closerie de Lilas located in Montparnasse has been the nest of Ernest Hemingway because he lived close to it. He described Closerie de Lilas as "my home café." The visits later would have involved also Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Apollinaire was another affectionate customer.
The Dingo Bar an attraction for Ernest Hemingway and Francis Scott Fitzgerald. The restaurant of the Dingo became with the time an italian reality.
Jean-Paul Sartre and Beauvoir loved to create inspired sat at The Café Du Dome. Sartre was also an affectionate of Le Montana like also Goddard, Truffaut.
The cafés of the Latin Quarter are interesting. Here it's located the oldest café Le Procope founded in the 17th century; the Polidor and Lapérouse were founded in the 18th century.
Crémerie Restaurant Polidor was the place choosen by James Joyce Rimbaud, Verlaine, Richard Wright. Being close to La Sorbonne, serving a lot of students and professors, prices are cheap for everyone, and food pretty good.
Le Procope was the nest of the modern Enciclopedie wanted by Diderot and D'Alambert. Voltaire and Rousseau were affectionate clients. The founder was a sicilian man called Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli.
In the Right Bank Le Fouquet's was the restaurant choosen often by James Joyce.
Beautiful, erudite and at the same time useful book, plenty of informations, with also good introductions and observations.
Highly recommended.
Anna Maria Polidori
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