Malaysia

Malaysia, the deep song of the jungle

Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1930, Henri Fauconnier’s Malaysia is a great novel of adventure and contemplation. Through dense and sensory writing, the author takes us to the heart of a lush jungle, where wonder competes with self-testing.

The story of a departure and a metamorphosis

After the First World War, Lescale leaves Europe for Malaysia, drawn by the call of faraway places. There he joins a former comrade-in-arms who has become a rubber planter and discovers a harsh, solitary and deeply transformative daily life. Inspired by his own experience, Henri Fauconnier makes Malaysia much more than a backdrop: it is a living, powerful territory, capable of permanently changing those who venture there.

Malaysia, the central character of the novel

Through Malay poems, sensory descriptions, and total immersion in the jungle, the novel offers an intimate and respectful look at the local culture. Nature occupies an essential, omnipresent, almost mythical place in it. Malaysia is a deeply literary work, an inner journey as much as a tale of exploration, whose power and modernity still resonate today.