Reading The Easy Life, there is a sense of riding on the edge of a dark wave, a brilliant intensity only Marguerite Duras could bring into existence. A novel of the disquieting contours of family, and of the mind, and of life unceasing even in the midst of death. How exhilarating to be able to encounter Francine Veyrenattes, a character I won't forget, and for the first time in English, this early work by one of the most important, visionary writers of all time

AMINA CAIN

In this powerful, immaculately translated novel, we watch the young Marguerite Duras move from the fierce, iron rigors of narrative to her more characteristic style of relentless introspection. This book, which she wrote in her twenties, already reveals all her powers

EDMUND WHITE

Praise for Marguerite Duras: By turns ardent, raging, sensual and embittered ... A dreamlike, savage world, in which the great themes of love, war and death found their most recklessly impassioned chronicler

Observer

A writer who believed that understanding suffering was an act of the imagination

New Yorker

Very beautiful, highly intelligent, enjoyable and original

Sunday Times