Rights sold to Italy (Atmosphere Libri)

1951. After losing his wife in unusual circumstances and having a book blacklisted, successful author Camille Duval leaves for the United States and withdraws into silence for twelve years. Forgotten by most and suspected of madness by some, the Swiss writer reappears one day with the extraordinary Palliante, described by Claude Simon as a “pure novel”. Shortly afterwards his Rhodanian Trilogy fulfils the earlier book’s promise by turning upside down the world of twentieth century literary prose. But Camille Duval dies as soon as his masterpiece is published, taking with him the secret of this second wind.
2001. A researcher sets off on the trail of this Swiss literary phoenix. Sure she will resolve the enigma of Duval’s re-emergence, Carole Courvoisier launches into an investigation that soon becomes the most bizarre quest in literary studies. Prodigy or impostor, devastated widower or assassin, who was Camille Duval really?
Through a succession of disturbing witness accounts and scandalous theories, the heroine of this biographical detective tale embarks on a pursuit that takes her from Manhattan to Alaska, plunging readers into the waters of the Hudson river, and inviting them behind the scenes in a famous lunatic asylum and on a Mormon campus, ending up in a grizzly bear’s cage.

The Bear’s Quill brings to life the many faces of America, the undesirable and forgotten alongside campaigners for the natural world, and provides amusing proof that studying bears and literature can easily go hand in hand.

Born in Geneva in 1967, Carole Allamand has been living in the United States since 1993. She is an ardent campaigner for bears, the author of a book on Marguerite Yourcenar and of numerous articles about French and American writers, and she teaches contemporary literature at a large east coast university. The Bear’s Quill is her first novel.