1951: A flight of a Falcon

McGraw-Hill Book Company.

English translation by Naomi Walford of Comme un vol de gerfauts. Awarded the Prix des Lecteurs in 1947, this long novel heralds the themes and forms dear to Françoise’s heart, which were to recur throughout her novels. The sea, its buccaneering and shipwrecks (at her request, Françoise’s ashes will be scattered by a sailing ship off the Morbihan), and above all the historical novel transformed into a psychological narrative, because it seemed to her that this form was “more accessible to our modern sensibility”, as she says in the introduction. Hence our feeling, according to Élise Thiébaut, “of living the adventures from the inside”, reinforced by striking, highly pictorial descriptions. (Vincent)

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

i