Histoires de civils et de soldats

The war told by those who lived it: the three stories that make up Histoires de civils et de soldats were written between 1893 and 1896. Yet nothing could be more different than the three conflicts in which they are rooted: the American Civil War of 1861, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 in France and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 in Bulgaria.

Ambrose Bierce’s Chikamauga, Léon Bloy’s The Vampire Salamander, Vsevolod Garchine’s Four Days on the Battlefield : three soldiers turned authors, of three different nationalities and with very personal styles. Despite the variety of their temperaments, writing styles and cultures, these stories, brought together for the first time in a single programme, form a coherent whole that is universal, timeless and emotionally powerful. Although these stories are (almost) ‘true’, they are nonetheless always strange, bordering on the fantastic and the supernatural.

Through the viewpoint of a conscript, a volunteer and a child, Bierce, Bloy and Garchine found the right words to tell the horror, absurdity and the madness that can seize men in the irrational times of war. Jérémie Le Louët and Théo Pombet will bring to life these three universal, timeless and vibrant tales.