Marcel Proust at Lake Geneva

In the September and October of 1899, Marcel Proust spends six weeks in Évian on Lake Geneva where he immerses himself in an intense social life: visits to the magnificent villas owned by international aristocrats that surround the lake, numerous excursions, amusements and extensive debates. Proust jots down impressions, sketches, aperçus, of which he doesn’t yet fathom that he will return to them years later as he embarks on the editing of In Search of Lost Time. Up until 1905, Proust returns to Lac Léman many times – a fact that wasn’t widely known until now. The lake would become one of the places where he writes and that he longs for.

Évian, Thonon, Maugny, Coppet, Geneva and Mont Blanc: Jürgen Ritte travels in the footsteps of Marcel Proust and embarks on a journey of literary and cultural-historical discovery in the exclusive holiday destinations of the Romandy.