A review by flogigyahoo
Peste & Choléra by Patrick Deville

5.0

Goodreads did not find the English version of this book, but I assure you it exists. I read it as a paperback only on an outward bound flight to the USA and finished it only on the return home, hence the long reading period. This is a lovely book that tells of the life of Alexandre Yersin, the discoverer of the cause of plague although he did not connect it with fleas. The bacillus is named after him as yersina pestis. But if you expect a straight forward biography, it is not. It is purely a novel, starting in 1940, with flashbacks and flash forwards, sometimes our hero young and starting out, yet old and at the end of his life in some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read. His life of Yersin tells of a man who constantly asks questions, he grows plants in Indochina, makes a fortune in rubber only to invest it in his research and medical facilities there while studying quinine, he is interested in everything. He becomes famous but never wins a Nobel prize. One caveat: The title is Plague and Cholera but there is little mention of cholera in this novel nor in Wikipedia. So the title is misleading. No matter. J. A. Underwood is listed as translator. An intelligent job of a brilliantly written life of a great man.