On Leave

The rediscovered story of soldiers in Paris during the Algerian war

First published in Paris in 1957, as France’s engagement in Algeria became ever more bloody, On Leave received a handful of reviews and soon disappeared from view. Through David Bellos’s translation, this lost classic has been rediscovered. Spare, forceful and moving, the novel describes a week in the lives of a sergeant, a corporal and a private, home on leave in Paris. Informed by the many hours Anselme spent talking to conscripts in Paris, On Leave is a timeless evocation of the shame and alienation felt by men returning home from an unpopular war.