fortress close to a sea which defines the ancestral border between the stagnant principality of Orsenna and the territory of its archenemy, the mysterious Farghestan. Its lonely characters are caught in a no man's land, waiting for something to happen and wondering whether something should be done to bring about change, particularly when change may mean the death of civilisations. Works Au château d'Argol, 1938 (novel) (English translation: The Castle of Argol) Un beau ténébreux, 1945 (novel) (English translation: A Dark Stranger) Liberté grande, 1946 (poetry) (English translation: Great Liberty) Le Roi pêcheur, 1948 (play) André Breton, quelques aspects de l'écrivain, 1948 (critique) La Littérature à l'estomac, 1949 Le Rivage des Syrtes, 1951 (novel) (English translation: The Opposing Shore) Prose pour l'Étrangère, 1952 Penthésilée, 1954 (play; translation of Kleist's Penthesilea) Un balcon en forêt, 1958 (novel) (English translation: Balcony in the Forest) Préférences, 1961 Lettrines, 1967 La Presqu'île, 1970 Le Roi Cophetua, 1970 (novel) (English translation: King Cophetua); it inspired the film Rendezvous at Bray, directed by André Delvaux Lettrines II, 1974 Les Eaux Étroites, 1976 (Allusions, allegories and metaphors on a French river, l'Èvre.) (English title: The Narrow Waters) En lisant en écrivant, 1980 (English translation: Reading Writing) La Forme d'une ville, 1985 (English translation: The Shape of a City) Autour des sept collines, 1988 Carnets du grand chemin, 1992 Entretiens, 2002 La letteratura da voltastomaco, Milano, De Piante Editore, 2022, ISBN 979-12-803-6224-7 See also Le Mondes 100 Books of the Century, a list which includes The Opposing Shore References Jean-Louis de Rambures, "Comment travaillent les écrivains", Paris 1978 (interview with J. Gracq) Encounters with Julien Gracq", by Gérard Bertrand Dominique Perrin, "De Louis Poirier à Julien Gracq", Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2009, 759 p. External links Obituary in The Times, 31 December 2007 1910 births 2007 deaths People from Maine-et-Loire 20th-century French novelists 21st-century French novelists French fantasy writers Writers from Pays de la Loire Sciences Po alumni École Normale Supérieure alumni Lycée Henri-IV alumni Prix Goncourt winners French male novelists 20th-century French male writers 21st-century French male writers