Following the rhythm of the seasons, a child is by turns cheerful, sad, mournful, thrilled and surprised to learn about the world. All sorts of characters accompany him. The watchman at the Genoese cemetery where most of this bildungsroman takes place, as well as the fabricant, the stone-cutter, Ludivine and Constance – and of course, the woman whose absence is central to the plot: the child’s mother, whose illness forces her to shut herself up in a house overlooking the port. With the others, the child expresses curiosity and surprise about death, love, passing time and more. But with her, the mother, he communicates by flow of thought, directly from one mind to the other, in sudden, intermittent and unpredictable bursts.
Anne Luthaud’s stunningly poetic, lush and beautiful text unfolds in skips and jumps, reflecting the child’s movements and the flow of mental communication that comes and goes and comes again, depending on each person’s life and on everyone’s life story. Intimacy and exemplarity intertwine and complement each other to offer us a slice of humanity in its subtlest complexity.

A coming-of-age fable that transports readers through both the poetry of the language and the strength of the images conjured up by the author. Reading, watching, you get caught up in the wanderings of this new Little Prince.