The Wife of Martin Guerre
Book description
In this new edition of Janet Lewis's classic short novel, The Wife of Martin Guerre, Swallow Press executive editor Kevin Haworth writes that Lewis's story is "a short novel of astonishing depth and resonance, a sharply drawn historical tale that asks contemporary questions about identity and belonging, about men and…
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked The Wife of Martin Guerre as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I caught up with a short novel on my long “to-be-read” list: “The Wife of Martin Guerre” by Janet Lewis. Since its publication in 1941, the book has garnered extravagant praise as one of the greatest short novels of the twentieth century. Lewis’s French source is a sixteenth-century court case about the mysterious disappearance and return of Martin Guerre and the contested question of his identity.
I love that the book belongs to Bertrande de Rols Guerre, not her husband, Martin. She is the enigma that Janet Lewis unpacks. We meet eleven-year-old Bertrande on her wedding day, although the marriage…