In the Land of Pain

Author: Daudet, Alphonse, Barnes, Julian

Diaries, letters & journals

Published on 1 February 2018 by Vintage Publishing (Vintage Classics) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 112 pages
199 x 136 x 7 | 100g

Alphonse Daudet was a highly popular nineteenth-century French novelist, whose work radiated humour and good cheer. Few knew that for his entire adult life he suffered from syphilis, a disease both unmentionable and incurable at the time. What even fewer realised was that he kept an intimate notebook in which he recorded the development and terrifying effects of the disease. Describing a life in pain, and the sometimes alarming treatments he underwent, Daudet's journal is unique for its comic zest, lucid self-examination and stoicism.

Translated by the Booker Prize-winning writer Julian Barnes.