Author(s): Christine Smallwood

FILM STUDIES

In the fifth title of the acclaimed Decadent Editions series, Christine Smallwood explores Chantal Akerman’s adaptation of Marcel Proust’s The Prisoner, the fifth volume of In Search of Lost Time, in a text that moves elegantly between Akerman’s films, Proust’s novel, and Smallwood’s own life. In Chantal Akerman’s contemporary adaptation of Proust’s The Prisoner, a wealthy young man lives with his girlfriend in his Paris apartment. As obsession begets deceit inside the cage they call love, it becomes ever more difficult to distinguish captive from captor. Christine Smallwood is the author of the novel The Life of the Mind and a regular contributor to publications such as The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, Bookforum and The New York Times Magazine. She is the recipient of the 2023 Anthony Veasna So Fiction Prize and a 2023 Silvers Grant.