Romain Debluë offers us the slap of the year, of the century, who knows?

A cathedral book of just over a thousand pages, rich in ten times as many fulgurances, the new novel by 31-year-old Montreux author Romain Debluë is the pride and joy of publisher Michel Moret, who has also published works by Jacques Chessex and Corinna Bille. This initiatory novel, which follows the arrival in Paris of a young Swiss student who also discovers love and the Catholic faith, is a literary and philosophical breath of fresh air never before encountered from the pen of a Helvetian (good luck to anyone who wants to name a name).

It's astonishing, even to the seasoned reader, that one can survive the development of a language so preciously Proustian. It's like bathing in a mountain river, wild and intimate at the same time. In The Stag Hunt, The result is a valley of laughter and tears, the valley of great works and great characters, where hearts and minds mingle in a single cry of the human soul.

Literature as an alternative to mediocrity

«Cohen seems to think it's a pity that characters in novels never go to the toilet,» the main character comments volubly when I share my praise with him over coffee in his hometown, to which he always returns on vacation. I think just the opposite,« he continues: »We get enough of mediocre people and futile discussions in life, and literature is there to brighten up this lukewarm daily routine!"

Romain Debluë immediately struck me as a character straight out of a (good) novel when I met him a few years ago in Paris, at our neighboring stands at the Salon de la Revue. We immediately struck up a dialogue that was at once amusing, cordial and demanding. «Dialogue is the best place for characters to confront each other, and it's not for nothing that Dostoïveski's characters are always talking! The words of Debluë, the third of his name and a living genius.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

To discover two excerpts from The Stag Hunt, For more information, order our print edition, where we've published a preview of the novel: Le Regard Libre N°100.

Romain Debluë
The Stag Hunt
Editions de l'Aire
1048 pages
February 2023

Order the book