Midnight confession | Georges Duhamel

The events of this story are nothing more than "Salavan" being fired from his trivial job after an incident people consider foolish and abnormal, and he sees it as a necessary act that restores his confidence that he is a person living among others. And after that, there is only unemployment, homelessness, poverty, dreams of deprivation, and illusions of the lonely heart. In "Midnight Confession," "Duhamel" analyzed the elements of contradiction between the individual and society, between the individual's reality and hopes, and between his ideas and actions. All of this was reflected in the mind of "Salavan," so he does not recount events, but ideas that have reached such strength and dominance that they are as significant as events; for him, they are real events, true adventures that grip your breath as you read them. The character of "Salavan"... is no less alive, honest, or profound than the characters of "Hamlet" or "Don Quixote." "Midnight Confession" was ranked among the twelve titles on the list of the "Grand Prize for the best novels of the first half of the twentieth century." We present it here in the exceptional translation by Shukri Muhammad Eiad.