Saint-Germain ou la négociation
One of the copies stamped as a press copy.
Signed presentation inscription: “pour monsieur Alexandre Vialatte, en bien sincère hommage, Francis Walder.”
Publisher's insert (restored) preserved.
Prix Goncourt, 1958. A senior Belgian civil servant and former diplomat, Francis Walder (1906–1997) transposes into this novel the subtle games of sixteenth-century diplomacy, through the negotiations conducted at the château of Saint-Germain in 1570 between Catholics and Protestants. In this remarkable historical chamber piece, Walder, writing in a precise, restrained, almost “classical” style, depicts the arcana of power, the fragility of political balances and the primacy of cunning over brute force.
In honoring Saint-Germain ou la négociation, the Académie Goncourt rewarded a novel of intelligence and elegance, heir to the Enlightenment and to the art of conversation — a truly literary and charming Goncourt, and only the second foreign author to receive the prize, after his fellow Belgian Charles Plisnier in 1937 for Faux passeports.
Copy presented to Alexandre Vialatte. A columnist, writer and translator of Kafka, Vialatte was a master of literary irony; this provenance gives the book a particular resonance, placing Walder’s novel under the gaze of a mischievous mind who himself knew how to handle nuance and allusion as well as the subtleties and ambiguities of negotiation.
Publisher’s insert (restored) preserved.
Rare.