Book Reviews: Le Diable Au Corps

Raymond Radiguet burst onto the literary scene in 1923 with his first novel, Le Diable Au Corps, which tells the tale of a married woman who has an affair with a 16-year-old boy while her husband is away at the WWI front. It caused quite the scandal for its explicitness and lines like “remember what war was like for so many very young boys: four years of great holidays”.

His unique style pegged Radiguet for great things, but sadly his only other book, Le bal du comte d’Orgel, was published posthumously. He died aged 20 in 1923 from TB, which he caught from Jean Cocteau. Coco Chanel organised his funeral.

From France Today magazine. For more France Today book reviews, click here