Whilst in her eighties, Alice Rivaz sorted through the notebooks she wrote in every day from 1939 to 1982. Traces de vie (Traces of life) is the fruit of this drastic pruning. This book offers readers a summary of her life and thoughts over more than forty years. It allows us to get to know the novelist more closely, to better understand her personality. She describes her professional activities, shares her interests, her aesthetic tastes, her perception of current events, her opinions, and her friendships, yet with not so much as a hint about her love life.

The novelist’s notes shed new light on her work, highlighting its many aspects and providing insight. Her acute intelligence, sensitivity, love of nature that seeps through her highly pictorial descriptions, and her deep empathy shine through her choice of readings and her particularly interesting and enlightening comments.

Her notebooks go beyond the realm of the novelist to also provide a fascinating account of cultural and social life in 20th-century Geneva.