One thing Jerry Sweeney knows all too well is how many writers have tried to capture the expatriate literary life in Paris during the 1920s. He knows that since he’s read almost every one of them over a lifetime.
Starting life after attending the University of Michigan and before a long career in publishing in Manhattan and Europe, Sweeney wanted to be a writer, and he started with a short novel based on F. Scott Fitzgerald. And thus began a fascination with the famed novelists in the early 20th century that made up so much of the Cafe Society found it Paris.
But after completing a six-part novel series entitled The Columbiad, Jerry wanted to try something new in the telling of those golden Paris years. For the first time, he wrote a play about this remarkable moment in literary history. The play, Divine Privilege, will be published in November.
The Spy, like all good spies, loves a story in Paris, and we sat down with Jerry last week about his project, those writers, and that extraordinary decade before the second world war.
This video is approximately 3 minutes in length. For more information about Jerry Sweeney and his work please go here.
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