Author of the Month: Gustave Flaubert

The great French realist writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) wrote to a female friend about month's selection, "A Simple Heart" (originally titled "L'Histoire d'un Coeur Simple" -- the "Story of a Simple Heart"). He said it "is nothing more or less than the account of an obscure life, that of a poor country girl, devout but not mystical, matter-of-factly devoted, tender with a tenderness redolent of freshly baked bread."*

*Letter to Edma Roger des Genettes, dated June 19, 1876 ; cited in Brown, Frederick, Flaubert: a Biography, New York: Little, Brown, 2006.