Verba Mundi

Often likened to Kafka's The Castle, The Tartar Steppe is both a scathing critique of military life and a meditation on the human thirst for glory. It tells of young Giovanni Drogo, who is posted to a distant fort overlooking the vast Tartar steppe. Although not intending to stay, Giovanni suddenly finds that years have passed, as, almost without his noticing, he has come to share the others' wait for a foreign invasion that never happens. Over time the fort is downgraded and Giovanni's ambitions fade until the day the enemy begins massing on the desolate steppe...

Obsessed with the idea of finding the Corsair treasure he heard about in his youth, Alexis L'Etang abandons his job and family, setting off on a quest that will take him from remote tropical islands to the hell of the First World War, and from a love affair with the elusive Ouma to a momentous confrontation with the search that has consumed his life.

"The sequel to Sylvie Germain's highly acclaimed The Book of Nights, Night of Amber continues the grotesque, fantastic, and riveting story of the Peniel family. It ranges from the terror and atrocity of the Algerian War to the frenzied Paris of May, 1968. Like The Book of Nights, which it brings to a dramatic conclusion, this is a novel that blends myth, history, memorable characters, and pure emotional intensity. The hero of the novel is Charles-Victor Peniel, called "Night-of-Amber," whose lonely and angry childhood eventually lands him in Paris at the time of the May 1968 riots. There, Charles-Victor becomes involved with a band of dangerous companions, and in a whirlwind situation that spins uncontrollably into sadism, murder, and, ultimately, redemption."--BOOK JACKET.