Jean Giono’s hallucinatory Fragments of a Paradise appears here for the first time in English translation. Giono dictated the novel to his secretary, Mlle Alice, over a four-month period in 1944 between two imprisonments for promulgating pacifist ideas. It tells the story of a ship, L’Indien, and its crew as they embark on a voyage south towards the furthest reaches of the Atlantic. It begins with a painstakingly detailed description of preparations for departure and the events of the first days of their voyage, slowly evolving into a supernatural and atemporal narrative. At the book’s denouement, with one day bleeding indistinguishably into the next, the crew remark that ‘the rain had been drumming relentlessly for days and days, endlessly heavy and impenetrable’. 

The story is presented through the captain’s journal, collective observations and the ship’s log, written by two of the officers. Giono describes the life that each crewmember – irrespective of their place within the ship’s hierarchy – has left behind and how they cope onboard. The narrative feels purposefully fragmentary, though that does not come at the expense of detail. We are told that the mouth of a seaman named Archigard ‘would extinguish all the light of his eyes’. As the voyage unfolds, the worries and fascinations of the crew, stirred by the troubles and treasures the sea throws at them, are discussed with poetic precision. 

Fragments of a Paradise is a tale of longing and human powerlessness. The crew leave behind ‘civilized countries’, experiencing the wonder, fear and disgust that untouched nature arouses throughout their voyage. It is a great treat that audiences can enjoy Giono’s enchanting, haunting and chimeric narrative in English, eighty