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by Emmanuelle Arsan (Author), Anselm Hollo (Translator)
Emmanuelle is, alongside Story of O, a classic book of erotica and the most famous French underground novel of the late twentieth century and a work of seductive literary merit. Emmanuelle II continues the story of an unforgettable woman, a happy sensualist, whose unusual erotic experimentation explores the philosophy of sexuality in a novel of literary and philosophical merit.
The beautiful heroine's initiation into the ecstasies of love are here set against the exotic background of Thailand, where she easily moves from the attentions of a handsome Siamese prince at an elegant soiree to the dark ante-chamber of a Buddhist temple to learn how the vow of celibacy can be cleverly circumvented by a venerable old monk. A sensual delight, Emmanuelle II succeeds, like few novels before it, in pushing the philosophy of eroticism to the frontiers of myth. This is one of the few erotic novels of ideas since Sade. Its exploration of delightful fantasy transformed into exquisite fulfillment makes this one of the finest erotic novels every published. It is as pertinent today as it was four decades ago.Author Biography
Emmanuelle Arsan is the pseudonym of Marayat and Louis Jacques Rollet-Andriane. Emmanuelle was initially revealed to be written by Marayat, in order to conceal the identity of her husband, a French diplomat stationed in Thailand. Several more novels were published under the Emmanuelle Arsan moniker, including Emmanuelle II.
Anselm Hollo (translator)wrote more than thirty books, including the essay collection Caws & Causeries and Notes on the Possibilities and Attractions of Existence: New and Selected Poems 1965-2000, which received the San Francisco Poetry Center's Book Award for 2001. His translation of Pentii Saarikoski's Trilogy received the 2004 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. He was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, two grants from The Fund for Poetry, and the Government of Finland's Distinguished Foreign Translator's Award.
