La Petite Faunesse: Roman

A provincial French town in the shadow of its own history becomes the stage for youthful longing in this 1918 novel. Michel, the son of the marquis de Roquebusane, wanders through the remnants of old conflicts and local traditions, his eyes fixed on Ève, a woman who refuses to conform to the expectations of her station. As the town prepares for a grand hunting ritual led by the formidable Marquis Sulpice d'Escorral, the rigid hierarchies of status and inheritance collide with the untamed desires of the young. Derennes paints his village with the particular melancholy of places where joy and despair have always dwelt side by side. This is a story about what it means to inherit a name, a legacy, and expectations, and to question whether any of it was ever truly yours. For readers who savor the quiet tragedies of provincial French literature, where small rebellions carry the weight of entire worlds.