Un long dimanche de fiançailles
Signed presentation inscription: “Pour toi, Régine, avec mon [heart drawing] et la nostalgie. A bientôt, Jean-Baptiste.”
Jean-Baptiste Rossi was only eighteen when he submitted a novel to Robert Laffont, who accepted it at once despite its provocative subject: Les Mal partis, which won the Prix de l’Unanimité in 1966, awarded by a jury that included Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Aragon, Elsa Triolet, Jean-Louis Bory and Robert Merle. Around this time he also translated J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, before adapting Les Mal partis for the screen. L’Été meurtrier (Prix des Deux-Magots, 1978) followed, and above all this Un long dimanche de fiançailles, for which he won the Prix Interallié. It was adapted for film in 2004 by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Marion Cotillard and — Jodie Foster! The film won five César awards.
A fine copy, complete with its dust jacket, first printing.