The Contessa

Benedetta Craveri is a Professor of French literature. She taught for many years at the University Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples. She is a member of the Accademia dei Lincei and contributes to The New York Review of Books and to the cultural pages of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Her books include Madame du Deffand and Her World, Mistresses and Queens, and The Age of Conversation (available from New York Review Books). She is married to a French diplomat and in 2017 was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca by l’Institut de France.

Alex Andriesse’s essays and poems have appeared in Granta, Review of Contemporary Fiction, and Literary Imagination. His translations include Roberto Bazlen’s Notes Without a Text and Other Writings and François-René de Chateaubriand’s Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1768–1800 and 1800–15 both of which are also available from NYRB Classics. He lives in the Netherlands.