Marguerite Duras is one of France's greatest and most well-known female writers. If you want to dive into modern French literature books then Duras is one of the all-time favorite French authors and this is a great place to start.

Duras' most renowned piece, The Lover, is (somewhat shockingly) autobiographical. It takes place in French colonial Vietnam and is recounted through the eyes of an unidentified 15-year-old girl who falls connected with a much older Chinese businessman. As a result, it has frequently been compared to Nabokov's Lolita and has even been dubbed the Anti-Lolita.

The main character is the daughter of a single mother who is concerned with money, prestige, and her social standing. She takes advantage of her daughter and her friendship with this weather businessman. It’s so, so messed up but a thoroughly enthralling read.

Link to buy: https://bom.so/KlWxhx

Madame Bovary is one of the most well-known French novels of all time. It was Gustave Flaubert's first work, published in the 1850s. This is one of the best French books, and everybody interested in French literature should read it. Flaubert is regarded as one of the most famous French novels, if not the most influential writer of all time, and his work provides a fascinating glimpse into nineteenth-century French society.

Madame Bovary, the main character, is a lady who always wants more - she's read too many French romance novels and has an idealized view of her life and marriage. She is always searching for greater social status, grand love gestures, gorgeous possessions, and other things. She expects that her marriage to Charles Bovary will provide her with this, but he falls short of expectations, and as a result, so does her life. Emma Bovary's character evolves as her attempts to meet her unrealistic life aspirations become increasingly desperate.

Link to buy: https://bom.so/sPtyKt

Candide is the mature equivalent of The Little Prince. Voltaire, one of the most prominent French philosophers, wrote picaresque fiction. On the surface, it appears to be a story of adventure, discovery, and even romance, but it is actually a serious critique of eighteenth-century French society.

Short tales, such as Candide, rose to prominence as a serious literary genre during this time period, as writers concealed their didactic and philosophical intents behind the short story form. Voltaire used a traveler as his protagonist in order to juxtapose two cultures and allow for "innocent" inquiry about strange concepts.

Readers might enjoy this as a lighthearted short narrative, or they can delve deeper and discover Voltaire's severe criticisms of society at large, which are still relevant and amusing today. This is one of the shortest books on the list and a fantastic place to start if you're unfamiliar with traditional French literature.

Link to buy: https://bom.so/NMGoji

The Stranger, which is a standard element of the French curriculum in schools, is one of the best modern French novels and one of the most recognized French books in the English-speaking world. It's the type of novel that you should read more than once to catch all of the intricacies, but it's well worth it. It's brief, but it's packed with questions that will make you reconsider your perspective on society and justice.

Camus' short story is a philosophical narrative about a man whose routine existence is upended by his mother's death. He is unaffected by her death; he does not even cry, yet society blames him for his lack of reaction, which later determines his fate.

This is Camus' best example of absurdist philosophy. According to Camus, the book's hero is doomed because he does not play the game. He is an "alien" in society, and Camus used him to criticize social conventions as well as the people of society who ostracize individuals who do not conform to them.

Link to buy: https://bom.so/61f1Yy

Dangerous Liaisons may be familiar to you from the popular 1988 film of the same name. It stars John Malcovich, Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer, Peter Capaldi, Keanu Reeves, and Uma Thurman among others.

Another successful adaptation, Cruel Intentions, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Reese Witherspoon, was released in 1999. However, as is always the case, the book is superior to the film!

Dangerous Liaisons is a story about extravagance and immorality among the French nobility. It takes place a few years before the French Revolution and is all about seduction and playing games to keep them entertained. Former lovers, the two main protagonists, choose naive, innocent prey and dare each other to seduce them. What begins as a game of manipulation ends with far more devastating implications than either party could have expected.

Link to buy: https://bom.so/z2zunR

The Second Sex, also known as Le Deuxième Sexe, is widely regarded as the Bible of modern Western feminism. Despite translation challenges, The Second Sex is nevertheless read by generations of women in the UK and the US. It's a nonfiction title written in two volumes in which Beauvoir examines how women have been treated throughout history.

It's a hefty book, but it's well worth reading because of the wide range of perspectives and historical periods it covers. She takes people from Ancient Greece and Rome to the twentieth century, exploring women's roles in history, the home, literature, and other areas. Some sections are rather abstract, while others are inspired by de Beauvoir's studies of science, biology, and the female body.

Unquestionably, progress has been achieved over the last century, but the fact that a piece like this is still as current and vital today as it was when it was written in 1949 shows how far people still have to go. This is required reading for anyone claiming to be a feminist and fighting for gender equality.

Link to buy: https://bom.so/Vu0LBi

The Immoralist looks at the case of a guy with a wife and child, means, and a career who gets caught up in a complex web of overlapping relationships and duties. He comes to perceive his entire existence as a fake and abandons everything in pursuit of his actual, authentic, homosexual self. This was, at least potentially, the fundamental drama of Gide's life, so it's no surprise that many readers associate him with his hero.

The Immoralist is a straightforward, but deeply satirical, story in which the first-person narrator uncovers life's moral complexities through seemingly benign reminiscences. It is the narrative of Michel, who is both sensitive and careless, discovering himself at the expense of his marriage and his wife's life.

This is an interesting narrative to read since it examines the ties between French citizens and French Algerians, which is an important component of recent French history. Gide employs the first person short narrative to distract from the parallels to his own life, claiming that he is writing from the thoughts of his character rather than himself. This was crucial in the early twentieth century when publicly discussing and writing about homosexuality was frowned upon.

Link to buy: https://bom.so/BhY3ms

If you like T.S. Eliot, then Baudelaire is another poet you should add to your reading list. Baudelaire was a major influence on French writers such as Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé. Les Fleurs du Mal, or The Flowers of Evil, is his most famous work, a collection of poetry on the changes that occurred in Paris as a result of industrialization in the nineteenth century.

Baudelaire argued that The Flowers of Evil was more than just a collection of unconnected poems, but rather a well-planned sequence. The trend through his collection is threefold: the longing for ecstasy, the agony of failing to obtain perfection, and ultimately the affirmation of the bitter, limited but deep worth that remains. Throughout his work, he shows the monotony of society in an honest and beautiful manner, making it well worth reading.

Link to buy: https://bom.so/Js2kN9

Stendhal's books examine a wide range of societal themes, including politics, the church, French rural life, the position of women, and socioeconomic class. Many popular writers of the time tackled these issues, but Stendhal stands out by focusing on the psyche of his heroes. As a result, many regard him to be the father of the psychological novel.

The Red and the Black follows the life of Julien Sorel, a young man from humble beginnings who is attempting to climb above his circumstances. He has lofty ambitions but quickly realizes that the only way to rise through the social levels is to embrace the hypocrisy that pervades the materialistic elite. However, in his efforts to establish himself, he ends up as a pawn in the hands of the powerful persons around him. This sarcastic portrait of French society has been described as a novel ahead of its time, and it should be added to your TBR pile.

Stendhal was an outspoken opponent of women's social and emotional enslavement, and it is clear from his novels that he was an author with true empathy for women. The Red and the Black is a severe critique of women's subordination in society, and feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir praised Stendhal in her work, The Second Sex (above).

Link to buy: https://bom.so/RhgFJh

Political turbulence characterized nineteenth-century France, and hence historical and political change play a key role in the bulk of great literary works produced in France during this period. Honoré de Balzac was a well-known writer at the time and is regarded as one of the forefathers of literary realism. His writings have been lauded over and again for their depiction of society following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815.

Père Goriot is largely regarded as Balzac's most important novel, and it weaves together three unrelated stories. This features Eugene de Rastignac, a young guy just starting out in life and learning how to navigate Parisian society. Vautrin, a forty-year-old felon, comes next. Finally, there's Père Goriot, an elderly man dying in poverty, unloved and unaided by his two daughters, to whom he has given everything.

Make no mistake, this is a sad story. Balzac offers a grim portrait of French society, and Old Goriot's situation is as bad as it gets. However, the thorough social critique, depictions of living in France, and French history make it well worth reading.

Link to buy: https://bom.so/emy3F6