Peking Opera Reform, The

‘I had seen so many men celebrated and then disgraced, and so many men disgraced and then rehabilitated, that for a long time I kept the hope of someday being held worthy of the history of our country. The wheel had turned, and would turn. Undoubtedly, I would not be there to witness it. I recited to myself the words that men condemned to die defiantly utter on the scaffold: “In twenty years, I shall be a handsome young man again, one of the brave….”’

In this enigmatic novella, one hears of the life of a litterateur before, during, and after the Great Revolution.

The Peking Opera Reform was awarded the Prix Décembre in 2013. Maël Renouard is a French writer, Prix Goncourt finalist.