“From the Great War, Sam knows neither the trenches nor the front, but he shares the suffering of the survivors piled up at the Royal, a grand hotel in Nice transformed into a makeshift hospital. His nights are haunted by cries even more haunting than the images denied to him by his blindness. In this hell of screams and agony, where he wanders like a ghost, a woman’s perfume suddenly disturbs him. It belongs to Helena, a young Russian nurse, who will reignite in him a light he thought was extinguished forever…”
Against the backdrop of a historical drama, Raoul Mille paints a poignant fresco where the sentimental destinies of two beings saved by a bright passion are intertwined.
Raoul Mille:
Writer and Municipal Councillor of the city of Nice with responsibilities in culture, literature, the fight against illiteracy and history. Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Raoul Mille received the Interallié Prize in 1987 for “Les Amants du Paradis” (Grasset), the Paul Léautaud Prize in 1993 for “Père et Mère” (Flammarion), the Baie des Anges Prize in 1997 for “Le Paradis des Tempêtes” (Albin Michel), and the French Academy’s Prize for support to literary creation in 2005 for “Marie Bashkirtseff” (Albin Michel). In 2000, he began a collaboration with Nice Matin for a column titled “Ma Riviera,” which lasted 7 years and was published in 4 volumes by Editions Giletta.
In his novels as in his columns, Raoul Mille has always illustrated the magic and history of the land of his heart, Nice.
