A Place in the Sun

Granta editor, Ian Jack, writes about Katherine Mansfield’s convalescence in Menton for the Guardian. Menton, a resort town on the French Riviera, was renowned for its curative sea air in the early 20th century. Suffering from tuberculosis, Mansfield stayed at the Villa Isola Bella from 1919 to 1921, dying shortly afterwards in Switzerland aged 34. Menton has a street named in the NZ writer’s honour – Rue Katherine Mansfield – and the Villa Isola Bella is home to two bronze plaques commemorating its famous former resident. Writes Jack, “[Mansfield] wrote some of the greatest short stories of the last century: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Man Without a Temperament. To have written just one of them, I thought on the platform at Menton Garavan: that would be something.”