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The Erl-King is one of the greatest novels to have been conceived in the crucible of the Second World War. Quite simply, it is ´the most important book to come out of France since Proust´ (New Yorker)

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An international bestseller and winner of the Prix Goncourt, The Erl-King is a magisterial tale of innocence, perversion and obsession. It follows the passage of strange, gentle Abel Tiffauges from submissive schoolboy to adult misfit - a man without a sense of belonging until he finds himself a prisoner of war, and then a teacher, and then the ´ogre´ of a Nazi school at the castle of Kaltenborn. Taking us more deeply into the dark heart of fascism than any novel since The Tin Drum, Tournier´s masterpiece rivets us until the very last page, when Abel meets his mystic fate in the collapsing ruins of the Third Reich; it is a novel that shocks us, dazzles us, and above all holds us spellbound.

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No summary can suggest the rich texture, the dazzling profundity and creative vitality of this novel; the strangest and most haunting to come out of the fratricidal war Sunday Times

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Michel Tournier is one of France´s greatest living writers, winner of the Grand Prix du roman de l´Académie fran‡aise in 1967 for Friday and the Prix Goncourt for The Erl-King in 1970. A member of the Académie Goncourt, Michel Tournier currently lives in Choisel.

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