A Conversation on the Quai Voltaire

Lee Langley is a British writer born in Calcutta, India. Langley is the author of ten novels, including Changes of Address (1987), a largely autobiographical account of her childhood in India, the first in a loose trilogy of novels set in India which was short-listed for the Hawthornden Prize. It was followed by Persistent Rumours (1992), which won the Writers' Guild Award (Best Fiction) and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book), and A House in Pondicherry (1995). Her novel, Distant Music (2001), spans six centuries in a narrative that begins on the Portuguese island of Madeira in the 15th century and ends in London in the year 2000. Her novel, A Conversation on the Quai Voltaire (2006), is set in 18th and 19th century Paris, Italy, Russia and Egypt, and recreates the life of Dominique Vivant Denon, one of the most significant figures in French art history.