The Roots of Heaven (novel)
 1956 French edition | |
| Author | Romain Gary |
|---|---|
| Original title | Les Racines du ciel |
| Translator | Jonathan Griffin |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Publisher | Éditions Gallimard |
Publication date | 5 October 1956 |
Published in English | 1958 |
| Pages | 510 |
The Roots of Heaven (French: Les Racines du ciel) is a 1956 novel by the Lithuanian-born French writer and WW II aviator, Romain Gary (born Roman Kacew). It received the Prix Goncourt for fiction and was translated in English in 1957.[1]
Set in French Equatorial Africa, the book is the story of a crusading environmentalist, Morel, who labors to preserve elephants from extinction, but which narrative is actually a metaphor for the quest for salvation for all humanity. He is assisted in the task by Minna, a nightclub hostess, and Forsythe, a disgraced British military officer seeking redemption.
John Huston directed and Darryl Zanuck produced a 1958 Hollywood film with the same title based on the novel. It was actually shot in the malaria-infested Belgian Congo and starred Trevor Howard as Morel, Errol Flynn as Forsythe, and Juliette Gréco as Minna, with a cameo by Orson Welles that was filmed in a Parisian studio.
See also
References
- ↑ "Le Palmarès". academie-goncourt.fr (in French). Académie Goncourt. Retrieved 2011-12-16.