The divine child
Subtitle: a novel of prenatal rebellion
By: Pascal Bruckner ; translated from the French by Joachim Neugroschel.
Contributors: Neugroschel, Joachim.
Edition: 1st English language ed.
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 214
Subjects: Fetal behavior -- Fiction.; Pregnant women -- Fiction.; Twins -- Fiction.
Description: Madeleine Barthelemey is pregnant with twins. On the advice of her doctor, she decides to undertake their education in utero. Nine months later, Celine is born - a daughter whose cleverness and erudition vanish the moment she enters the world. Witnessing the fate of his once-brilliant and now dull-witted sister, the urbane, well-educated, but also conniving Louis rejects birth altogether and embarks on a campaign of prenatal rebellion.

His mother tries to starve him out; he retaliates by attacking her internal organs. Guerrilla warfare is thereafter carried out between mother and son, and in the process Louis's fetal crusade becomes a cause celebre - he soon emerges as the first neonate to become both a cult figure and a powerful media icon, eventually demanding, and receiving, an audience with God.