Despite an impressive body of poems, novels, short stories, and literary criticism; high praise for his writing by French and Swiss critics; and a collection of honours that includes the prestigious Prix Goncourt, awarded for his novel L'Ogre in 1973, Jacques Chessex is relatively unknown outside France and Switzerland. With this book, David J. Bond provides the first comprehensive study of his work in any language--a study that reveals Chessex's deep ambivalence towards his Calvinist heritage and his efforts to resolve this dilemma through his texts.

Born in 1934...