Duras's first work of short fiction, Des journées entières dans les arbres (Whole Days in the Trees and Other Stories), was published in 1954. Consisting of four stories, Des journées entières dans les arbres touches on several themes that Duras explored more fully in her later work—particularly the developing sexuality of young women—but in form and structure is more similar to her earlier works, which tend to be realistic and conventionally structured.