Inside a Pearl. My Years in Paris

Edmund White was forty-three when he moved to Paris in 1983. He spoke no French and knew just two people in the entire city, but soon discovered the anxieties and pleasures of mastering a new culture. He fell passionately in love with Paris, its beauty in the half-light and its serenity compared with New York. Intoxicated and stimulated by its culture, White made the acquaintance of everyone from Yves Saint Laurent, Catherine Deneuve and Michel Foucault to Julian Barnes, Martin Amis and Alan Hollinghurst.
Inside a Pearl vividly recalls those fertile years and offers a brilliant examination of a city and a culture eternally imbued with an aura of enchantment.