Summary
In the mid-19th century, Narcisse Pelletier, a young French sailor, is abandoned on an Australian beach. Seventeen years later, an English ship finds him by chance: he lives naked and tattooed, hunting and fishing in the manner of the tribe that took him in. He has lost the use of French and forgotten his own name. What happened during those seventeen years? That is the riddle facing Octave de Vallombrun, the man who takes in the one now called the “white savage.” Inspired by a true story, this novel won eight literary prizes, including the 2012 Goncourt for a first novel.
