On Leave

A long-lost French novel in which three soldiers return home from an unpopular unspeakable war When On Leave was published in Paris in 1957 as France''s engagement in Algeria became ever more bloody it told people things they did not want to hear. It vividly described what it was like for soldiers to return home from an unpopular war in a faraway place. The book received a handful of reviews it was never reprinted it disappeared from view. With no outcome to the war in sight its power to disturb was too much to bear. Through David Bellos''s translation this lost classic has been rediscovered. Spare forceful and moving it describes a week in the lives of a sergeant a corporal and an infantryman each home on leave in Paris. What these soldiers have to say can''t be heard can''t even be spoken; they find themselves strangers in their own city unmoored from their lives. Full of sympathy and feeling informed by the many hours Daniel Anselme spent talking to conscripts in Paris On Leave is a timeless evocation of what the history books can never record: the shame and the terror felt by men returning home from war.