“Literary France: Susannah’s Top Ten Places”

Susannah Fullerton OAM FRSN
Author, Literary Lecturer, and Tour Leader

Date: Thursday, 21 May 2025, 6.30–7.30 pm AEST
Venue: RSL Mittagong, Carrington Room
Entry: Members, $5; Non-members, $10
All are welcome

Summary: There’s just so much to love about France – magnificent Paris, French wine and food, French style, superb art, and the glorious French countryside. But there’s also its beautiful language and the works of its brilliant writers. France has had more winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature than any other nation. During the 19^th century, some of its novelists changed the face of the novel, and its purpose – Balzac, Dumas, Flaubert, Hugo and Zola were amongst them. And the 20^th century also produced remarkable personalities – Proust with his madeleine, and ‘enfant terrible’ Arthur Rimbaud are two examples.

French writers were so often larger-than-life. They lived life to the full, with mistresses and lovers, enormous debts, lashings of French style, homes they couldn’t afford, and banquets and cookbooks as accompaniments. This talk will introduce you to some of those intriguing characters, from George Sand to Marcel Proust. It will take you into their memorable residences – chateaux and manor houses, apartments, a seaside villa, and a windmill — but it will also take you to places connected with their fictional creations, such as a prison and a medical museum.

Most of us have been lucky enough to visit France. It’s the most popular tourist destination in the world! This talk will hopefully bring back fabulous ‘souvenirs’ of your own travels, and will remind you of the glories of ‘la belle France’.

Susannah Fullerton is a literary lecturer, tour leader and author. She has been President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for 30 years and has written several books about Jane Austen.  Susannah leads literary tours around the world for Australians Studying Abroad. Her most recent book, published by the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is ‘Great Writers and the Cats who Owned Them’.

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