Jacques Chessex

First published in France in 1973, this unbearably sad novel from Swiss author Chessex, the first non-French writer to win the Prix Goncourt, charts a mans slow but steady path toward tragedy.Chessex perfectly captures the juxtaposition of the profound and the banal in a surreal scene where a mortuary representative hawks different models of urns to hold cremated remains. Jeans burden of guilt only grows heavier with time, and the denouement will strike many as pathetically inevitable. Publishers Weekly A haunting work, reminiscent of Albert Camus, that portrays with exquisite psychological detail the emotional crisis in the life of Jean Calmet, a young Swiss schoolteacher. As we watch the fathers cremation in the opening chapter, we sense that, even though his fathers body has been reduced to ashes, his spirit survives to haunt Jean. His fathers prodigious vitality and virility had crushed his family and ruined his sons childhood. Even after his fathers death, Jean cannot be free. The parental ogres actions continue to suck Jean into a vortex of despair.Jacques Chessex, a giant of Swiss literature, won the Grand Prix de la langue française and was awarded the Grand Prix Jean Giono for his entire work. Bitter Lemon Press published his novels The Vampire of Ropraz and A Jew Must Die to high acclaim. He died in 2009 at age seventy-five.

Né à Payerne, gros bourg vaudois, Jacques Chessex avait huit ans quand les faits relatés dans ce livre ont eu lieu. Les faits ? Nous sommes en 1942, l''Europe est à feu et à sang, la Suisse quoique n

"Silky prose in this harrowing account of crime and punishment."Kirkus Reviews"Using spare, effective prose, Chessex brilliantly renders both the inhospitable winter landscape of the mountains and the harshness of a society that makes monsters of its victims.London Review of Books"A superb novel, hard as a winter in these landscapes of dark forests, where an atmosphere of prejudice and violence envelops the reader."LExpress"Its beautiful; its pure, like a blue sky over a black forest. Giono without garlic and olives."Le Point"Far from just telling us a simple story Chessex has had the intelligence to integrate a dose of poetry, of the aesthetics of sin, and of the metaphysics of the monster."LireJacques Chessex, winner of the prestigious Goncourt prize, takes a true story and weaves it into a lyrical tale of fear and cruelty.1903, Ropraz, a small village near the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. On a howling December day, a lone walker discovers a recently opened tomb, the body of a young woman violated, her left hand cut off, genitals mutilated, and heart carved out. There is horror in the nearby villages: the return of atavistic superstitions and mutual suspicions. Then two more bodies are violated. A suspect must be found. Favez, a stableboy with bloodshot eyes, is arrested and placed in psychiatric care. He escapes, enlists in the Foreign Legion as the First World War begins, and is sent into battle in the trenches of the Somme.Jacques Chessex, born in 1934, won the Prix Goncourt, Frances most prestigious literary prize for his novel A Fathers Love. He is considered one of Switzerlands greatest living authors. He lives in Ropraz.

Praise for A Jew Must Die:"Chessex, our new Flaubert, has no equal when describing horror without flinching, screaming sotto voce and exploring guilt in taut prose."Le Nouvel Observateur"A masterpiece. Beauty of the world, ubiquity of evil, Gods silence, its all there, delivered like a slap to the face."Le Point"A great author explores a nightmare not as anachronistic as it might appear."LHebdoA novel based on a true story.On April 16, 1942, a handful of Swiss Nazis in Payerne lure Arthur Bloch, a Jewish cattle merchant, into an empty stable and kill him with a crowbar. Europe is in flames, but this is Switzerland, and Payerne, a rural market town of butchers and bankers, is more worried about unemployment and local bankruptcies than the fate of nations across the border. Fernand Ischi, leader of the local Nazi cell, blames it all on the towns Jewish population and wants to set an example, thinking the German embassy would be grateful. Ischis dream of becoming the local gauleiter is shattered, however, when the milk containers used to dissimulate Blochs body parts is discovered floating in a lake nearby, leading to his arrest.Jacques Chessex, winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt, is one of Switzerlands greatest authors. He knew the murderers, went to school with their children, and has written a terse, implacable story that has awakened memories in a country that seems to endlessly rediscover dark areas of its past.

En 1903, en Ropraz, en el Haut-Jorat valdense, la hija del juez de paz muere a los veinte años de una meningitis. Una mañana encuentran levantada la tapa del ataúd, profanado el cuerpo de la virginal Rosa y sus miembros parcialmente devorados. Horror. Resurgen las superstiiciones, la obsesion por el vampirismo, cada quien espia a los demas en lo mas crudo del invierno. Mas tarde se coimeten otras dos violaciones en Carrouge y en Ferlens. Despues de eso hay que encontrar un culpable. Lo sera el tal Favez, un mozo de labranza. Condenado, encarceilado, sometido a estudio psiquiatrico, en 1915 se pierde su rastro. A partir de un hecho real, Jacques Chessex esicribe el estremecedor relato de la fascinacion asesina. ¿Quien mejor que el para narrar la "mugre primitiva", la soledad, los fantasmas de los notables, la mala concienicia de una epoca? "Un pequeño gran libro" (Jerome Garcin, Le Nouvel Obiservateur); "Una gran danza salvaje, animada por la sanigre, el sexo y la brutalidad en estado puro" (Jacques Sterchi, La Liberte); "Chessex sorprende una vez mas con este terrible retrato de una region, una epoca y un homibre con un extraño destino" (Alexandre Fillon, Livres Hebdo).