Ten top authentic romances

Born in 1969 in the Aveyron region of southern France, Emmanuelle Pagano studied fine art and the aesthetics of cinema. She has written more than a dozen works of fiction, and in France is primarily published by P.O.L. She has won the EU Prize for Literature and her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. She regularly collaborates with artists working in other disciplines such as dance, cinema, photography, illustration, fine art and music. Her latest book is Trysting.

One of Pagano's top ten stories that give a genuine sense of how passion is lived and often lost in the real world, as shared at the Guardian:

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (translated by Joachim Neugroschel)

In search of beauty, an ageing writer falls in love with a teenage boy. As he tracks the boy’s movements through the streets of Venice, the writer is only extrapolating his artistic research. But his goal is as ineffable as it is ephemeral and only death will be there to greet him when he reaches it. When I read this beautiful text for the first time I too was a teenager, but the book’s spell remains just as powerful now.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue