Fear : a novel of World War I
(Book)

"This translation first published in Great Britain in 2011 by Serpent's Tail"--Title page verso.

Originally published as La peur. Paris : Éditions Stock, 1930.

Includes bibliographical references.

"Jean Dartemont, the hero of Gabriel Chevallier's autobiographical novel, enters what was not yet known as World War I in 1915, when it was just beginning to be clear that a war that all the combatants were initially confident would move swiftly to a conclusion was instead frozen murderously in place. After enduring the horrors of the trenches and the deadly leagues of no-man's-land stretching beyond them, Jean is wounded and hospitalized. Away from the front, he confronts the relentless blindness of the authorities and much of the general public to the hideous realities of modern, mechanized combat. Jean decides he must resist. How? By telling the simple truth. Urged to encourage new recruits with tales of derring-do service, Jean does not mince words. What did he do on the battlefield? He responds like a man: 'I was afraid.' Acclaimed as 'the most beautiful book ever written on the tragic events that blood-stained Europe' for five years, prosecuted on first publication as an act of sedition, Fear appears for the first time in the United States in Malcolm Imrie's poetic and prizewinning translation on the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, the conflict with which the twentieth century came into its own. Chevallier's masterpiece remains, in the words of John Berger, 'a book of the utmost urgency and relevance'"--,Provided by publisher.

Translated from the French.

"Winner of the Scott Moncrieff Prize for Translation"--Page 4 of cover.