The Vampire of Ropraz
by Jacques Chessex

[read about the author]

[reviews]

UK: Oct 2008 / US: Apr 2009

1903, Ropraz, a small village in the Jura Mountains. On a howling December day a lone walker discovers a tomb recently opened, the body of a young woman violated, left hand cut off, sex mutilated and heart cut out. Horror in the nearby villages, the return of atavistic superstitions, mutual suspicions in the heart of winter. Then two more bodies are violated. Now a suspect must be found. Fevez, a stable-boy with blod-shot eyes is arrested, convicted, subjected to psychiatric care and then vanishes in 1915. Chessex takes this true story and weaves it into a lyrical tale of fear and cruelty.

Author Information
Jacques Chessex is one of Switzerland's great living writers. He is revered in France and won the Prix Goncourt in 1973 for L'Ogre...

The Translator
W.Donald Wilson, born in 1938, is a professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada. He is a translator of fiction and non-fiction from the French and his work includes titles by Yves Thériault and Jean Heffer.

Praise for The Vampire of Ropraz
'Packs visceral punch and unlikely to be quickly forgotten.' Crime Time

'Stark, wintry prose...disconcerting novella that alternately seduces and appals.' The List