Dimensions
224 x 136 x 24mm
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 a poet whose ambition is to amass a fortune and return to the literary caf s 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 whose mind is perennially split in two, and the servile, treacherous Donatien who dreams of running a brothel. The officers spend their days guarding enslaved rubber-tappers and kidnapping young girls from the jungle, constantly overlooked by chattering mandrills and drenched in the heat of the most remote place in the world; 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 Li ge. An outstanding new novel from the critically acclaimed and prizewinning author Bernardo Atxaga, Seven Houses in France is a vivid tale which reveals the darkest sides of human desire.
