EPTToday's entry is the first part of an article I found on Xinhua about Paris:
+ Show Spoiler [Source text] +
在巴黎住上一阵，就会发现法国人喜欢上咖啡馆。巴黎有不少咖啡馆因文学艺术而闻名天下。有评论家甚至说，是咖啡馆造就了法国近现代文学史。此话也许夸张，但几个世纪来咖啡馆与法国文学结下的不解之缘有目共睹。
获得今年法国文学最高奖龚古尔奖的亚历克西·热尼坦言，小说《法国兵法》就是他在咖啡馆一个字一个字写出来的。“在家里我什么也写不出来，只有在咖啡馆我才有灵感。奇怪得很，咖啡馆内人来人往，些许喧闹、嘈杂的气氛反而使我内心平静，文思泉涌。”
巴黎的咖啡馆主要分布在蒙马特高地、塞纳河左岸的圣日耳曼和蒙巴纳斯三地。
蒙马特高地上名气最大的是“灵兔”咖啡馆。它在圣心教堂后面，看上去很简朴，一道木栅栏围着一幢低矮的两层楼房，酷似一座农家小院。然而，它在２０世纪初却是法国文学和艺术革命的发源地，许多艺术流派诞生于此。当年，每逢夜幕降临，毕加索、马克斯·雅各布、阿波利奈尔等许多画家和作家便会光顾此地，谈论艺术与创作。
塞纳河左岸的圣日耳曼是文人墨客频繁出入的街区，同在一条街上的“花神”、“利普”和“双偶”是咖啡馆里最有名的。萨特、西蒙娜·德·波伏娃、加缪经常在“花神”咖啡馆聚会，讨论存在主义文学。
+ Show Spoiler [Translation] +
If you live in Paris for a while, you'll come to realise that the French like cafes. Paris has a lot of cafes that are world-renowned for literature and art. Some critics even say that cafes were the breeding ground for modern French literature. This may be an exaggeration, but over the last century the indisputable connection between cafes and French literature cannot be ignored.
Alexis Jenni, winner of this year's Prix Goncourt, the highest prize in French literature, wrote every word of his novel “The French Art of War” inside cafes. “At home I can't write anything, it's only at cafes that I feel inspired. It's really strange, in cafes there are always people coming in and out and it's kind of noisy, but the loud atmosphere somehow calms my mind, and the ideas flow freely”.
Paris' cafes are mainly located on Montmartre Hill, and in the Bourg Saint-Germain and Montparnasse areas on the left bank of the Seine river.
The most famous cafe on Montmartre Hill is the “Quick Rabbit”. Located behind the Sacre-Coeur, it looks like nothing special, a low two-storey building surrounded by a wooden fence, almost like a small farmhouse. But at the start of the 20th century, it was the cradle of the French literature and art revolution, and is the birthplace of countless schools of art. In those days, as night began to fall, many artists such as Picasso, Marcus Jacob and Apollinaire would come here to discuss art and their works.
The Bourg Saint-Germain area on the left bank of the Seine is a block bustling with writers, and the three most famous cafes “Café de Flore”, “Lipp” and “Les Deux Magots” are located on the same street. Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Camus often used to meet inside “Café de Flore” to discuss existentialist literature.
Questions
This entry wasn't too difficult except for the large number of names I had to look up (<3 http://dict.cn). As always, any comments or corrections are appreciated though.
