Part of Series
De l'Exposition de 1889 à la guerre de 1914, ce roman fait la chronique d'un quart de siècle de la vie des Français, autour de Pierre Mercadier. Pierre Mercadier mène une vie convenue de professeur d’histoire à la fin du XIXème siècle (l’affaire Dreyfus est en toile de fond), avec son épouse (de bonne famille) et ses deux enfants. Un séjour d’été va achever la brouille au sein du couple et tout bascule. Pierre Mercadier disparaît pour aller mener une vie de bohème et d’aventurier. Il ne reviendra à Paris que vieillard finissant pour découvrir le destin de son fils Pascal
Author
Louis Aragon was a major figure in the avant-garde movements that shaped French literary and visual culture in the 20th century. His long career as a poet, novelist, communist polemicist and bona-fide war hero, secured him his place in the pantheon of French literary greats. With André Breton and Phillipe Soupault, Aragon launched the Surrealist movement and through his 1926 novel, Paysan de Paris (Paris Peasant), produced what is considered by most to be the movement's defining literary text. Having parted company with the movement in the early 1930s, Aragon devoted his energies to the French Communist Party and went on to produce a vast body of literature that combined elements of the avant-garde and social realism. Giving his voice and images to the art of France, Aragon was a leading influence on the shaping of the novel in the early to mid-twentieth century. He was also and an editor and a critic, being a member of the Académie Goncourt. After 1959, he was a frequent nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
