Seven houses in France
By: Bernardo Atxaga ; translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Contributors: Costa, Margaret Jull
Edition: Large print ed.
Publisher: W.F. Howes
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Rearsby [England]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 297
ISBN-13: 9781407493428
Subjects: Poets; Fiction; Armies; Officers; Kidnapping; Large type books; Interpersonal relations; Social life and customs; Manners and customs
Description: The year is 1903, and the garrison of Yangambi on the banks of the River Congo is under the command of Captain Lalande Biran. The captain is also a poet whose ambition is to amass a fortune and return to the literary cafes of Paris. His glamorous wife Christine has a further ambition: to own seven houses in France, a house for every year he has been abroad. At Lalande Biran's side are the ex-legionnaire van Thiegel, a brutal womaniser, and the servile, treacherous Donatien, who dreams of running a brothel. The officers spend their days guarding enslaved rubber-tappers and kidnapping young girls, and at their hands the jungle is transformed into a wild circus of human ambition and absurdity. But everything changes with the arrival of a new officer and brilliant marksman: the enigmatic Chrysostome Liege.
Notes: Translated from the Spanish.