Where to start? Well, the obvious answer is 1901, because that's the first year the Nobel Prize was awarded for literature. The winner? Sully Prudhomme, French poet and philosopher.
Believe it or not, it's not all that easy to find. I'm pretty sure his most recognized work, Stances et Poèmes, was never translated, or if it was it hasn't turned up yet. So I tried Amazon, but on my student budget I will not be buying these books unless I find a good deal.
Fortunately, I'm studying at a great French university, the Université de Montréal, and they have a really good library for "les belles lettres," (literally "beautiful letters") so I'm excited. I'm going to go to the literature library tomorrow and see if I can convince one of the crotchety old librarians to assist me. Hopefully they're better than the law librarians, who are pretty much uniformly evil old harpies crouching behind computers, gazing balefully at all who dare ask for help.
I'll report back tomorrow if I make it out of the witches' den alive! Wish me luck.
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