Volume 15, Number 6 · October 8, 1970
Moth Myth
By John Weightman
Papillon
by Henri Charrière, translated by June P. Wilson, translated by Walter Benn Michaels
William Morrow, 434 pp., $8.95
Les Quatre Vérités de Papillon
by Georges Ménager
La Table Ronde, 235 pp., 18 F.
Papillon Épinglé
by Gérard de Villiers
Presses de la Cité, 314 pp., 60 F.
Papillon was the literary wonder of the 1969 publishing season in France, a runaway best-seller which shot a sixty-year-old ex-convict, Henri Charrière, to fame and fortune and even turned him into a public personality, a respected guru to be consulted about the problems of life in press interviews and radio discussions. It would seem that not even the autobiographies of the two most famous living Frenchmen, the Mémoires of General de Gaulle and Les Mots by Jean-Paul Sartre, had achieved such record sales in so short a time.
Review, 2274 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |