Louis-Ferdinand Celine (1894-1961) is a classic of 20th century literature, a writer with a tragic fate, who has a reputation as a misanthrope, an anarchist, a cynic and an extreme individualist. Author of the notorious novels “Journey to the End of Night” (1932), “Death on Credit” (1936) and others, as well as no less scandalous racist and anti-Semitic pamphlets. Accused of collaborating with the German occupation authorities during the Second World War, Celine was forced to flee to Germany, and then to Denmark, where he spent several post-war years: first in prison, and then in exile... The events of this period are reflected in the trilogy: “ From Castle to Castle (1957), North (1960) and Rigodon (1969).

The novel From Castle to Castle could have been entitled The Edge of Night. The castles Celine speaks of are in reality strange, nightmarish ghosts whose names are War, Hatred, Poverty. Three times Celine finds himself an inhabitant of the castle: in Sigmaringen in the company of Marshal Petain and his ministers, in Denmark, where he is imprisoned for 18 months, then for several more years on a ruined farm, and finally in Meudon, where he practices as a doctor, and where his entire clientele consists of a few patients as poor as himself. This is not so much a novel as a confession, because objectivity is not characteristic of Celine. With inimitable humor, he describes the distraught Germans, on whose heads the whole of Europe is falling, Vichy ministers without ministries, and the marshal himself on the eve of the trial. This is a look at the war from the other side, a view belonging to a brilliant writer, endowed with an amazing ability to see what can be called the “wrong side of life.”

The translation is provided with detailed notes and comments.