Le vampire de Ropraz

“Silky prose in this harrowing account of crime and punishment.”— _Kirkus

Reviews_

“Using spare, effective prose, **Chessex** brilliantly renders both the

inhospitable winter landscape of the mountains and the harshness of a society

that makes monsters of its victims.’— _London_ _Review of Books_

“A superb novel, hard as a winter in these landscapes of dark forests, where

an atmosphere of prejudice and violence envelops the reader.”— _L’Express_

“It’s beautiful; it’s pure, like a blue sky over a black forest. Giono without

garlic and olives.”— _Le Point_

“Far from just telling us a simple story Chessex has had the intelligence to

integrate a dose of poetry, of the aesthetics of sin, and of the metaphysics

of the monster.”— _Lire_

Jacques Chessex, winner of the prestigious Goncourt prize, takes a true story

and weaves it into a lyrical tale of fear and cruelty.

1903, Ropraz, a small village near the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. On a

howling December day, a lone walker discovers a recently opened tomb, the body

of a young woman violated, her left hand cut off, genitals mutilated, and

heart carved out. There is horror in the nearby villages: the return of

atavistic superstitions and mutual suspicions. Then two more bodies are

violated. A suspect must be found. Favez, a stableboy with bloodshot eyes, is

arrested and placed in psychiatric care. He escapes, enlists in the Foreign

Legion as the First World War begins, and is sent into battle in the trenches

of the Somme.

**Jacques Chessex** , born in 1934, won the Prix Goncourt, France’s most

prestigious literary prize for his novel _A Father’s Love_. He is considered

one of Switzerland’s greatest living authors. He lives in Ropraz.