Les Mangeurs d’étoiles
One of 22 copies on vélin de Hollande, from the deluxe issue (no. 13).
The “star eaters,” a nickname given to Amerindians of the southern hemisphere who consumed hallucinogenic plants, is a term Gary extends to anyone pursuing a dream. In this novel, it applies to the irresistible rise and fall of Al Mayo, a Cujon Indian and dictator of a Caribbean republic, terribly ambitious and superstitious, who seeks to make a pact with the devil, in a modern transposition of Goethe’s Faust in which the United States plays the role of Mephistopheles.
In an interview given to Pierre Desgraupes on November 2, 1966, Romain Gary explained everything he had sought to convey in the novel, summarizing it thus: “Goethe frankly lied. Faust’s true tragedy is not that he sold his soul to the Devil, but that there is no Devil to buy it from you.”
A fine copy.