Soie

Around 1860, in order to save silkworm farms contaminated by an epidemic, Hervé Joncour sets off for Japan. Between the mountains of the Vivarais and Japan, it is the clash of two worlds, a story of love and war, a marvellous alchemy that weaves the novel out of impalpable threads. Long, dangerous journeys, impossible loves that carry on without ever having begun, characters of desire and passion, the velvet of a voice, the sanctification of a magnificent and sensual fabric, and slowness, the slowness of the seasons and of unchanging time.

From its very publication, Silk established Alessandro Baricco as the most talented of the young Italian writers.

“He was, besides, one of those men who like to watch their own life, considering any ambition to live it as somehow out of place.”

(Back cover of the 1996 Albin Michel edition)