Pianist and occasional painter, Alice is first and foremost a novellist, but her taste for painting, music and cinema fed her literary work and put her many talents in the limelight.

Numerous radio and television interviews, a documentary, and her personal notes curated in Traces de vie (Traces of life) offer us invaluable insight into her complex and strong character. A rare few recordings of her playing the piano give an inkling to the importance music held throughout her life.

After I've drawn to my satisfaction, I am much better at playing Bach. Feeling the need at the moment to drift from one art to the other, as if there were only one with diverse means of expression. Besides, I encounter the same difficulties and problems to solve, no matter the art, the same pitfalls, the same rules, and, within myself, the same shortfalls.

Traces de vie, July-August 1953