One of 30 copies on vergé de Hollande, this one nominative for Louis Brun (no. 1).
Signed presentation inscription: “À Louis Brun, en cordial souvenir, en remerciement pour son dévouement et avec l'espoir que nos bons rapports dureront longtemps. André Sauvignon.”
Bernard Grasset’s second Prix Goncourt, awarded a year after Monsieur des Lourdines, which immediately confirmed the young publisher as a major force on the literary scene. Filles de la pluie paints a harsh and picturesque portrait of the women of the island of Ouessant, marked by isolation, maritime labor and a hard existence at the far edge of Brittany.
The novel caused a scandal among the women of Ouessant, who brought a defamation suit against Savignon, a testament to the uncompromising realism of his portrayal. In honoring a text of provincial mores captured with an almost ethnographic realism, the jury’s choice extended the social and regional orientation sketched out in previous years.
An exceptional copy, nominative and numbered 1, presented to Louis Brun, editorial director and Bernard Grasset’s closest collaborator.
From the “Prix Goncourt” library of Gérard Pouguet, with bookplate.