Thirteen writers who shaped the image of twentieth-century literature here offer a key to great novels, plays, and poems of time by examining the intimate act of literary creation. Proust, Rilke, Gide, Thomas Mann, Pirandello, Lorca, Brecht, Sartre, Valery, Giraudoux, Anouilh, Duerrenmatt, and Malraux - these are the figures who adress us in this volume.