The Horseman on the Roof - (Horseman on the Roof Ppr) by Jean Giono (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Perhaps no other of his novels better reveals Giono's perfect balance between lyricism and narrative, description and characterization, the epic and the particular, than The Horseman on the Roof. This novel, which Giono began writing in 1934 and which was published in 1951, expanded and solidified his reputation as one of Europe's most important writers.

This is a novel of adventure, a roman courtois, that tells the story of Angelo, a nobleman who has been forced to leave Italy because of a duel, and is returning to his homeland by way of Provence. But that region is in the grip of a cholera epidemic, travelers are being imprisoned behind barricades, and exposure to the disease is almost certain.

Angelo's escapades, adventures, and heroic self-sacrifice in this hot, hallucinatory landscape, among corpses, criminals and rioting townspeople, share this epic tale.

Review Quotes

"One of the greatest writers of our generations." --Andre Malraux

"In Giono's work what every sensitive, full-blooded individual ought to be able to recognize at one is "the song of the world." --Henry Miller

"Jean Giono is one of the giants of modern French letters. He is the poet of the French countryside and of the French peasant, of man and nature, and the relation of man to nature. His books stand apart; there is nothing else in all French literature quite like them." --The Living Age

"Giono has stridden forward with a giant's step. He reveals himself as one of the most important novelists in Europe today." --The Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Jean Giono was born in Manosque, a small Provencal town in southeastern France. He wrote more than fifty novels, poetry collections, and plays, and in addition translated the works of Smollett and Melville into French. He died in 1970.