An existential detective story by one of France's most popular modern
writers, set in a mid-nineteenth century mountain village, available in
English for the first time
A King Alone is set in a remote Alpine village that is cut off from
the world by rugged mountains and by long months when the ground is
covered with snow and the heavens with cloud. One such winter, villagers
begin mysteriously to disappear. Soon the village is paralyzed by
terror, which gives way to relief and eager anticipation when the
outsider Langlois arrives to investigate. What he discovers, however,
will leave no one reassured, and his reappearance in the village a few
years later, now assigned the task of guarding it from wolves, awakens
those troubling memories. A man of few words, a regal manner, and
military efficiency, Langlois baffles and fascinates the villagers,
whose different responses to him shape Jean Giono's increasingly charged
narrative. This novel about a tiny community at the dangerous edge of
things and a man of law who is a man alone could be described as a
metaphysical Western. It unfolds with the uncanny inevitability and
disturbing intensity of a dream.
