Creative Writing The American University of Paris

Overview

Throughout its history, Paris has inspired writers from France and around the world, often providing a refuge from the intolerance, censorship, or the parochialism of their home countries. Paris is, and always has been, a place of literary salons and lively gatherings of artists and writers in cafés. 

Amid social and political upheaval, revolutionary approaches to literary form and subject matter have emerged more often from Paris than from any other metropolis, reflecting life in the throes of a modernizing world. The towering figures of French literature such as Hugo, Zola, Balzac, Baudelaire, and Apollinaire all took Paris as their subject, and the pre-eminence of the written word and the artistic spirit of Paris attracted foreign writers including Stein, Joyce, Hemingway, Beckett, Miller, Baldwin, Rhys, and Wright, to name a few.

Key Facts

During the day, students from the Creative Writing course from The American University of Paris benefit from the University’s library, common spaces, student café and, of course, the richness of the surrounding 7th arrondissement. Bordered by the Seine to the north, the Eiffel Tower to the west, and Les Invalides to the east, the septième is among the most enchanting and elegant of Paris neighbourhoods, offering a rich array of restaurants, cafés, stores, and public spaces that, in the height of summer, show Paris at its best.