Solal

Albert Cohen

1930

XXVI

In the swirling ballroom, chandeliers poured a corrosive milk over diamond-laced shoulders, and perfumes spun coils of desire between men and languid women swept round by the orchestra. Solal, the new Minister of Labor, looked upon his personnel with satisfaction. Hirsute members of parliament, waxed diplomats, generals, bankers, and the…

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Creator Bio

Albert Cohen

1895–1981

The French novelist Albert Cohen was born and spent his early years in Corfu, the inspiration for much of his fiction. His family moved to Marseilles in 1900, and after his baccalaureate, he moved to Geneva, where he trained as a lawyer and spent much of his life. A Zionist, he founded the short-lived journal Revue juive in 1925. During World War II, he worked in London for the Jewish Agency maintaining contacts with governments-in-exile. His major novels constitute one extended autobiographical fiction. Their protagonist, Solal, is a handsome League of Nations civil servant (as Cohen was for many years) who is torn between his Jewish loyalties and the beauty and sensuality of non-Jewish society.

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