In this first English translation of Hyvernaud's novel, the narrator, who has come back to France after imprisonment in Germany, is preoccupied with the near impossibility of writing a novel about his experiences; at the same time, he attempts to function normally in a world that seems to have changed radically. The Cattle Car is devoid of heroics, portraying the protagonist as a man without a future, the ordinary guy who moves quietly among objects, without making any sort of commotion, a man who daydreams other people's lives. In Letter to a Little Girl, which precedes The Cattle Car,...

A professor of literature at the ecole normale in Arras, Georges Hyvernaud was called up at the start of World War II and given the rank of lieutenant. He was captured with his unit in 1940. He was impounded in one Pomeranian "oflag," then in another; finally, on January 20, 1945, he was released and together with other former prisoners made his way across northern Germany, on foot and in cattle cars. On his person, Hyvernaud carried notebooks filled with what shortly became "La Peau et les Os," a narrative of his wartime experience.
Hyvernaud's account is of a failure of character, the...

"Statt der realistischen Erzählung eines Kriegsgefangenen ein sich an Episoden entlanghangelndes Nachdenken über das Leben als besiegter, gedemütigter Mensch.", schreibt Julia Schoch, die für die Übersetzung von Haut und Knochen den André-Gide-Preis für deutsch-französische Literaturübersetzungen 2010 erhielt.§Während Hyvernauds Roman "Der Viehwaggon" (1953) vor allem das Nachkriegs-Paris und das absurde Soldatenleben schildert, wird in "Haut und Knochen" (1949) unmittelbar vom Leben in deutscher Kriegsgefangenschaft und von der Heimkehr erzählt. Einer kommt aus dem Lager nach...