Our Paris:
Sketches from Memory (1994)

A witty and delightful tour of Paris as we have never seen it before.

Edmund White, one of our most celebrated writers, and the French artist Hubert Sorin offer us a lighthearted, gently satiric portrait of their favorite people and places in and around their neighborhood, the run-down heart of Paris called the Châtelet. It is an enchantingly varied world, populated not only by dazzling literati and ultra-chic couturiers and art dealers but also by poetic shopkeepers, grandmotherly prostitutes, and, ever underfoot, an irrepressible basset hound named Fred. The foibles and eccentricities of these sometimes-outrageous, always-memorable individuals are brought to life with unfailing wit and affection.

Below the surface of this sparkling comedy there is a tragic undercurrent, for while Hubert Sorin was completing his work, he was nearing the end of his struggle with AIDS. The book is a tribute to the brave spirit that led the authors to banish the somber and to celebrate the pleasures of their life together, as well as the differences between them. A scrumptious and touching memoir.

Hubert Sorin was an architect and illustrator. He was born in 1962 in Nantes, France, where he received a degree in architecture. He subsequently taught architecture for two years in Addis Ababa, Ethopia. Upon his return to Paris, he went to work for Jean-Jacques Ory, who directs the largest architectural office in France. After retiring at the end of 1989, Sorin became an illustrator and did the drawings for Our Paris. He died in March 1994, and his ashes are in columbarium 40557 at Père-Lachaise, Paris.