{"id":1800,"date":"2021-07-05T13:28:27","date_gmt":"2021-07-05T13:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/?p=1800"},"modified":"2024-02-23T11:57:26","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T11:57:26","slug":"top-historic-literary-cafes-of-the-left-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/2021\/07\/05\/top-historic-literary-cafes-of-the-left-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Historic Literary Caf\u00e9s of the Left Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since the Age of Enlightenment, caf\u00e9s became a popular meeting place of intellectuals and writers. This was especially the case over the course of the 20th<\/sup> century when the waterholes of la Rive Gauche<\/em> developed legendary statues thanks to the literary greats who graced their tables. Although these literary caf\u00e9s of the Left Bank no longer attract bohemian scribes like they did in bygone days, they are still worth making a pilgrimage to for current day writers and literary fans.<\/p>\n

\"Le-Procope-Creative-Writing-MA-Paris<\/p>\n

Le\u00a0Procope<\/h3>\n

Considering the oldest caf\u00e9 in Paris, this Left Bank institution has been welcoming intellectuals virtually since it opened in 1686. Thanks to the arrival of the Com\u00e9die Francaise theatre across the street in 1689, French playwrights, writers and philosophers naturally gravitated here. These include Condorcet, La Harpe, Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot, who is thought to have worked on his famous Encyclopaedia at the caf\u00e9. More restaurant than caf\u00e9 today, the classic establishment still has Voltaire’s favourite table, located on the first floor.<\/p>\n

\"Les

Les Deux Magots. Photo: Cheng-en Cheng \/ CC<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Les Deux Magots<\/span><\/h3>\n

One of the most famous caf\u00e9s in Paris, if not the world, this classic institution was originally a fabrics and novelty shop which was converted into a caf\u00e9 in 1884. It\u2019s growing popularity with Lost Generation writers like Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce\u00a0led the caf\u00e9 to start its own literary prize in 1933. Writers continued to gravitated to it over decades including Bertolt Brecht and Vladimir Nabokov, who mentioned it in his 1955 novel\u00a0Lolita<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Le<\/p>\n

Le Caf\u00e9 de Flore<\/h3>\n

Opened during the caf\u00e9 boom of the 1880s, this iconic St-Germain caf\u00e9, and staunch rival of its neighbour Les Deux Magots, acted as the unofficial headquarters of existentialism philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir for decades. Earlier in the century it was also a favorite of Apollinaire and Salmon, who worked on their arts review, Les Soir\u00e9es de Paris<\/em>, at the caf\u00e9. Albert Camus and poet Jacques Pr\u00e9vert could also found inspiration here.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/p>\n

La Closerie Des Lilas<\/h3>\n

Along with St-Germain, the Montparnasse district was another literary hub of the first half of the 20th century. This historic caf\u00e9, opened in the 1860s, first attracted avant-garde artists before drawing in both French and foreign writers. French poets Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire and Max Jacob could often be found here, pen or glass in hand. In their various eras one might encounter Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Fitzgerald and Henry Miller at its tables, however, it was Hemingway who frequented the venue the most. It’s said that he read Fitzgerald\u2019s manuscript of The Great Gatsby\u00a0here, he likely worked on The Sun Also Rises and the caf\u00e9 is described in his memoir,\u00a0A Moveable Feast.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/h2>\n

La Rotonde<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Another literary haunt of the Montparnasse district, and around the corner from our Paris School<\/a>, this caf\u00e9 used to be so popular that Hemingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises<\/em><\/a> that, \u201cno matter what cafe in Montparnasse you ask a taxi driver to bring you to from the right bank of the river, they always take you to the Rotonde.<\/em>\u201d In literary circles you could find Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein here as well as those in the art scene like Picasso, Modigliani and Cocteau. More recently, President Emmanuel Macron chose to celebrate his 2017 Presidential victory here, adding another chapter to the legendary caf\u00e9’s storied history.<\/p>\n

\"Caf\u00e9

Photo courtesy of Caf\u00e9 Tournon<\/p><\/div>\n

Caf\u00e9 Tournon<\/h3>\n

On the other side of the Luxembourg gardens, this unassuming neighbourhood caf\u00e9 became a meeting place for the next generation of writers. In the 1950s one could find James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Chester Himes and William Gardner Smith debating around its tables over an afternoon coffee. The caf\u00e9 also served as the early base of the staff and writers of the literary magazine The Paris Review.<\/em><\/p>\n

Looking for inspiration for your own writing in Paris? Advance your craft by undertaking our Master’s in Creative Writing in Paris<\/a> offered at our campus in the Montparnasse district.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the Age of Enlightenment, caf\u00e9s became a popular meeting place of intellectuals and writers. This was especially the case over the course of the 20th century when the waterholes of la Rive Gauche developed legendary statues thanks to the literary greats who graced their tables. Although these literary caf\u00e9s of the Left Bank no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74581,"featured_media":1810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1201,124,172971,173001],"tags":[21640,252363,252364,567,252362],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1800"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3288,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions\/3288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/paris-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}