Since the terrorist attacks, Parisians have been buying up Ernest Hemingway's memoir about the city

Ernest Hemingway's novel 'Paris est une fete' ('A Moveable Feast')
(Image credit: PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty Images)

Ernest Hemingway doesn't know it, but sales of A Moveable Feast, his posthumously released memoir about living in Paris, have apparently seen a big jolt in the City of Light this month.

Since the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, the book has sold out at a number of the city's bookstores and has claimed the No. 1 spot on Amazon's French site, in addition to finding a place among memorials for the 130 people who died.

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The Atlantic went to Sandra Spanier, the general editor of Penn State's Hemingway Letters Project, for insight as to why Hemingway's book, of all the literature about Paris, is one the French seem to be turning to in light of the tragedy.

"Maybe they appreciate the fact that Paris is appreciated by non-Parisians," she said. "Hemingway certainly expressed that in a way that has transcended time."

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Julie Kliegman

Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.