" Vie et oeuvre de Constantin Eröd "
Novel
- Nominated for : The Discovery Grant 2016
« A young cultural attaché to the embassy of France in Rome in the middle of 1990s made the knowledge of the crown prince of Slovanie. This soft old mister, Constantine Eröd, has delightful dialogues with him, he is bland and engaging. Following Yugoslavian wars, Constantine becomes king of Slovanie. And it is with dismay that the young man discovers by the media which bloody usage Mr Eröd makes of his recuperated power. Fifteen years after these events, he is called to the embassy of Slovanie in Paris to hear that his “friend” now dead has left something of an unknown nature. What contains the chest? What was the true life of Constantine Eröd? The one of an old exquisite mister, or of a tyrannical king? Is it really possible to know men? A novel in intrigues and in traps, in implied and in lies, about positions and lies of the personality. »
- presentation of the editor
« Julien Donadille gives us here a superb first novel of elegance and of workmanship. We go for a walk there in Rome with a young cultural attaché and a strange prince from the Balkans. The taste of the writing and the sense of friendship feed a training novel when life is built as an invention. Everything is lie in the sublimation of the real : it is his life dreamt to one, where the real is only a speech. It is then possible to create a country, a history, a vocation, the whole based on a founder lie to win his freedom and to control his destiny. It is splendid.»
- Hervé Bertho, Ouest-France, January 11th, 2016