Conversations with Rilke

An intimate portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke’s life and art in interwar Paris by his friend and translator, offering unparalleled insight into the creative process

A stunningly written, deeply personal biography that’s also a master class in the art of translation, perfect for fans of: Richard Holmes, Lydia Davis, Kate Briggs and Julian Green

From walks in the Luxembourg Garden to letters describing tea with an irascible Tolstoy, Rainer Maria Rilke’s French translator, Maurice Betz, enjoyed a rare intimacy with the great poet. This book, inspired by their time working together on the 1st French translation of Rilke’s only novel, invites the reader into that friendship, offering glimpses of Rilke’s creative process and the glittering cultural scene of interwar Paris.

Betz first came to Rilke as an admirer, carrying a book of his poems in his kit bag while serving as a soldier in World War I. No other writer meant so much to him, and Rilke would come to mean even more once their fruitful partnership began, lasting until the poet’s death in 1926.

Together they spent the spring and summer of 1925 editing Betz’s translation of The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, a painstaking process interrupted by companionable walks through the streets of Paris and vivaciously told anecdotes from the poet’s starry social world.

This elegant and poignant look at the great writer’s final years, drawn from Betz’s memories and the letters Rilke sent from his travels across Europe, provides a portrait of a brilliant mind, an evocation of a lost world, and a testament to an enduring friendship.

Maurice Betz (1898-1946) was a writer and prolific translator of Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann. He worked closely with Rilke on the French translations of his works while Rilke was alive, and continued translating the poet into French in the decades following his death.

Will Stone is a poet, essayist and literary translator of French, Franco-Belgian and German literature. Will’s previous translations include Rilke in Paris, also by Maurice Betz, several works by Stefan Zweig, and poems by Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke, all available from Pushkin Press.