A captivating literary and historical record, Jean Giono's Occupation
Journal offers a glimpse into life in collaborationist France during
the Second World War, as seen through the eyes and thoughts of one of
France's greatest and most independent writers.
Written during the years of France's occupation by the Nazis, Jean
Giono's Occupation Journal reveals the inner workings of one of
France's great literary minds during one of the country's darkest hours.
A renowned writer and committed pacifist throughout the 1930s--a
conviction that resulted in his imprisonment before and after the
Occupation--Giono spent the war in the village of Contadour in Provence,
where he wrote, corresponded with other writers, and cared for his
consumptive daughter. This journal records his musings on art and
literature, his observations of life, his interactions with the
machinery of the collaborationist Vichy regime, as well as his forceful
political convictions. Giono recounts the details of his life with
fierce independence of thought and novelistic attention to character and
dialogue. Occupation Journal is a fascinating historical document as
well as a unique window into one of French literature's most voracious
and critical minds.
