Proust pour la première fois – new edition 2026

The book will be shipped in early December 2026. You can order it now; it will be dispatched from Illiers-Combray as soon as it is published.

An age, a place, a book, a circumstance, sometimes a sentence that has remained intact: in 2020, for the seventieth anniversary of the Bulletin Marcel Proust, the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust asked seventy public figures to recall their first encounter with Proust’s work.

Six years later comes a new, revised and expanded edition of Proust pour la première fois (“Proust for the first time”). It includes sixty-six of the 2020 accounts and adds forty-five new ones: one hundred and eleven writers, actors, musicians, artists and public officials describe how they discovered In Search of Lost Time. Together they form a mosaic of singular experiences and remind us, with Proust, that every reader, when reading, is the reader of his own self.

The book is in French.

Proust pour la première fois, new edition, Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray, 2026. 328 pages, 14.8 × 21 cm. ISBN 978-2-492318-34-4.

The one hundred and eleven contributors: André Aciman, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, Christine Albanel, Fanny Ardant, Véronique Aubouy, Harold Augenbraum, Nathalie Azoulai, Stéphane Barsacq, Jérôme Bastianelli, Olivier Baumont, Karol Beffa, Aurélien Bellanger, Alix Bénézech, Stéphane Bern, Évelyne Bloch-Dano, Laurence des Cars, William C. Carter, Philippe Cassard, Jérôme Clément, Pierre Collin †, Antoine Compagnon, Paule Constant, Noël Corbin, Pedro Corrêa do Lago, Michel Crépu, Catherine Cusset, Charles Dantzig, Natalie David-Weill, Agnès Desarthe, Natalie Dessay, Yann Diener, Jacques Drillon †, Benoît Duteurtre †, Laura El Makki, Laurence Engel, Jean-Paul Enthoven, Jean-Louis Ezine, Guillaume Fau, Elsa Fottorino, Sylvain Fort, Jean Fraser, William Friedkin †, Guillaume Gallienne, Anne-Lise Gastaldi, Adrien Goetz, Donatien Grau, Anthony Guerrée, Valérie Guillaume, Lilia Hassaine, Stéphane Héaume, Jean-Paul Henriet, Stéphane Heuet, Pedro Kadivar, Maylis de Kerangal, Laure de La Raudière, Anne de Lacretelle, Thierry Laget, Mathieu Laine, Philippe Lançon, Geneviève Laurenceau, Laurent Le Bon, Bruno Le Maire, Marie Lebey, Pierre Lemaitre, Jacques Letertre, Raphaëlle Leyris, Dominique Mabin, Gérard Macé, Pascal Mailhos, Clément Mao – Takacs, William Marx, Nicolas Mathieu, Juliette Méadel, Catherine Meurisse, Sébastien Missoffe, Étienne de Montety, Ivan Morane, Bernard Morlino, Laure Murat, Eugène Nicole, Denis Olivennes, Jean-Pierre Ollivier †, Mona Ozouf, Stéphane Pallez, Laurence Parisot, Laurence Patrice, Gérard Pesson, Emmanuel Pierrat, Denis Podalydès, Jeremy Pradier-Jeauneau, Jérôme Prieur, Lakis Proguidis, Robert de Puységur, Anne Queffélec, Maël Renouard, Franck Riester, Olivier Rolin, Alix de Saint-André, Didier Sandre, Bénédicte Savoy, Colombe Schneck, Michel Schneider †, Agathe Simon, Jean-Yves Tadié, Gabriel Tchalik, Claude Térouinard †, Caroline Tillette, Paul Vacca, Edmund White †, Olivier Wickers, Kazuyoshi Yoshikawa.