Nancy in the Novel

Categories : Discover Nancy, published on : 6/24/25

Literary Strolls Inspired by Lorraine’s Writers

City of art and letters, Nancy — once the capital of the Dukes of Lorraine — offers far more than its celebrated Art Nouveau elegance and UNESCO-listed squares. It is also a cradle of literary inspiration, an open-air novel just waiting to be read. This summer, let your steps follow the rhythm of unwritten sentences, between gardens, alleyways, and bookshops. Here are a few literary strolls through Nancy, guided by the writers who once walked its streets, dreamed of its contours, or subtly evoked its essence in prose.

I. The City in Words: Following in the Footsteps of Lorraine’s Writers

Nancy has seen the birth or passage of many authors who, in their own ways, captured its moods and tensions. Beyond the usual touristic routes lies another path — one that follows sentences rather than signs.

Émile Moselly – A Deep and Luminous Lorraine

Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1907 for Le Rouet d’Ivrogne, Émile Moselly remains an overlooked but richly lyrical voice of the Lorraine countryside. With great tenderness and poetic precision, he depicts the lives of humble villagers, the landscapes of Meurthe-et-Moselle, and the quiet drama of rural existence.
His work is best read in the serenity of the Pépinière Park or a quiet terrace in the old town, where his finely chiseled sentences echo like a gentle pastoral symphony — filled with human dignity, silence, and fading light.

Anne-Marie Blanc – Lorraine’s Silences

Less known but profoundly moving, Anne-Marie Blanc captured the melancholic stillness of post-war Lorraine in novels such as Marie-Romaine and Le fil de l’absence. Reading her work in a tucked-away café, between the trickling sound of fountains and the cloistered shade of Nancy’s backstreets, one finds the prose speaking not only to the mind but to the air and time around it.

Paul Claudel – A Passing Glimmer

Though Claudel is a poet of the world, he left scattered traces of Lorraine in his letters and plays. His brief stay in Nancy left him marked by its baroque spirit, its solemn churches, and its theatrical facades. Claudel’s words come alive on the steps of Saint-Epvre Basilica or beneath the blue stained-glass windows of the Musée des Beaux-Arts — places where the poetic meets the eternal.

II. Summer Strolls and Thoughtful Reads

Nancy in summer opens like a forgotten book on a garden table. Here, one reads slowly — between two bell tolls, in the shade of a linden tree, or cradled by the hush of a quiet square. These works, while not all born of Lorraine, pair exquisitely with the city’s contemplative mood.

Julien Green – Moïra

A sensual, brooding novel best read in a room overlooking a courtyard, while the summer heat gathers on the curtains. Though Parisian by adoption, Green shares with Nancy a taste for ambiguity, for introspection, and for spiritual tremors that quiver beneath still surfaces.

Colette – The Vagabond

True, Colette was not from Lorraine. But her supple prose, her gift for capturing physical sensation in words, makes her an ideal companion for a solitary promenade on the heights of Nancy’s “Cure d’Air” park — a strange and charming path overlooking the city. One can imagine her delight in the breeze, the liberty, and the subtle disobedience of such a place.

Stendhal – Lucien Leuwen

And how not to mention Lucien Leuwen, a novel directly inspired by the administrative Lorraine of the 19th century? Though unfinished, it follows the early career of a young, ambitious man within a rigid and bureaucratic society. Read it facing the orderly beauty of Place de la Carrière or in the antique stillness of a grand salon, and feel the presence of its refined irony.

III. A City to Read as Much as to Explore

Reading Nancy sometimes means not reading at all — just walking, letting impressions rise of their own accord. A street name, a reflection in an old shop window, the scent of aged paper in a secondhand bookstore. Literature here is not frozen in stone; it floats in the air, patient and pervasive.

On your wanderings, visit the Bibliothèque Stanislas, push open the door of a bouquiniste, or get lost beneath the arcades. And if you’re one to jot down notes, carry a small notebook: this city occasionally whispers opening lines to those who listen.

And Finally... A Pause at the Hôtel Littéraire Stendhal

And should you wish to rest, after these literary and physical journeys, why not stay in a place that pays homage to the written word? Just steps from Nancy’s historic core, the Hôtel Littéraire Stendhal welcomes you into a world where each room tells a story, where books surround the traveler, and where literature is not a theme — but a daily breath.

Nancy through the lens of the novel is an invitation to walk differently. To read differently. And sometimes, to dream beyond the edge of the page.