A famous author was amazed by a short story written by a woman and so sent her his congratulations. She wrote back. Their literary and personal correspondence continued for several years, over the time when the war ended and while they each published their work. Even though they lived mere minutes from one another, they never actually met, almost as if they were intent on maintaining an air of mystery…

The epistolary exchange between Pierre Girard and Alice Rivaz could be described in the novelistic manner they both knew so well: With Geneva as the backdrop, with the parks, cafés and streets they both adored, and in the foreground, books in progress, works yet to be read or to reread, the world of publishers, magazines and newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland. Yet these letters also reveal the multiple and sometimes surprising aspects of the personalities of two exceptional people. Two leading authors separated by various circumstances, yet who instinctively detected each other’s underlying anxiety beneath all the facades. This connection, this shared feeling that their correspondence is where they truly met.