Journey of the Dead

Journey of the Dead began as a diary in the Fifties when François Augiéras was a shepherd in the Sahara. Written as an autobiographical narrative, Augiéras's narrator makes no secret of his love for boys and his penchant for girls and animals. But Journey of the Dead is not a confession of guilt, it is a revolt against the the vulgarity of Europe and its moral barriers. In 1953, Marguerite Yourcenar wrote of Augerias's work: 'These pages will obviously shock many readers (and not without reason) ... they seem clean, and in a sense noble, because serious when compared to the superficiality or meanness one now hears.' Augerias's life, just as in his work, consistently sought a way of living which was at once primitive and very much ahead of its time.