We are releasing our sixth Interlinear book: a French to English Interlinear translation of the story “A Simple Heart” by Gustave Flaubert.

1. Who is Gustave Flaubert?

Gustave Flaubert was a XIX-th century French writer, considered as one of the greatest novelists in Western literature. While he is most renowned for Madame Bovary, his romantic and realist writings have influenced countless writers, including Émile Zola, Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Mario Vargas Llosa et al. Flaubert is especially known for his writing style, where he allegedly spent weeks looking for the right word (“le mot juste”). This resulted in Flaubert publishing fewer, but, arguably, more polished works than his contemporaries.

2. What is “A Simple Heart”?

“A Simple Heart” (or “Un cœur simple” in French) is a story written by Gustave Flaubert. It was published in his work “Three Tales” (“Trois Contes”) in 1877. The story portrays a simple, unexamined, and yet difficult loss-ridden life of a woman. It can both be taken as a non-judgmental realistic depiction (as Flaubert said he would prefer you to), and as an ironic representation of her beliefs and allegedly simplistic ways of dealing with reality. Not only does Flaubert demonstrate his writing style in this story, his own experiences and emotions are intertwined with it. Flaubert was pushed to write this story by a friend George Sand, who passed away soon thereafter. Moreover, in order to master one character of the story – the parrot Loulou, Flaubert installed a stuffed parrot on his writing desk to fill his mind “with the idea of parrothood.” All of this results in a story which combines realistic depictions of simple, powerless characters and themes of suffering and loss with Flaubert’s poetic treatment of supernatural ideas, making everything fit in together. Therefore, this is not only a great story, but also a perfect example of the different elements of Flaubert’s writing and personality, and of the classical French literature altogether.

3. What does the Interlinear translation include?

Our Interlinear translation includes the entire, unabridged and unedited original story of over 10,000 words and expressions translated in the Interlinear format. This translation has been fully reviewed by a native French speaker, Dr. Olivier Simon. As usual, the translation follows two main principles: “literal but understandable” and “embracing to cognates.” The first one means that the translation stays as close to the original as possible. The latter principle means that the translation makes use of English and French cognates to highlight the similarities between the two languages, thus e.g. translating “un médecin” as “a medic” and not as “a doctor,” which would be the more commonly used translation. Here’s one more illustration of the translation: Our Interlinear book is currently available only as an electronic book in PDF or experimental EPUB file formats. We have printer-friendly PDF files in order to enable the printing of the book. You will receive a download link to the book immediately upon purchasing it. We will also indicate how you can find the audio version of the French book. You can find out more about the book by visiting the translation page.

4. Who is the translation for?

This French Interlinear translation of Flaubert is best-suited for intermediate to advanced French learners and people interested in reading classical French literature in the original language. It can also be used by beginner learners, but they are more likely to have trouble reading the translation and will probably need to spend a lot more time on it. We would like to publish more French Interlinear translations to also accommodate for beginner learners in the future, so please subscribe to our mailing list and stay tuned for our news if you are interested.

5. Where do I purchase this Interlinear book?

The book may be purchased here.

6. Other translations and information!

Apart from this French Interlinear book, you could check out our Spanish, Swedish, Russian, German or Lithuanian bilingual Interlinear books. You can also subscribe to our mailing list to be among the first to find out about our new releases. More soon!