Awards
Winner of the Prix des Libraires
Short-listed for the Grand Prix of the Académie Francaise
Synopses & Reviews
In autumn 1914, on one of the first days of shooting, Adrien Fournier, a lieutenant in the French Army, leads a reconnaissance mission to the Meuse River. From the opposite bank, German mortar fire blasts the team, killing all but Adrien who is hit in the face by shrapnel. He sustains terrible injuries. In the ensuing years, Adrien is left to wonder whether it would have been better had he, too, died that day on the river.
Adrien is sent to the hospital at Val-de-Grace on the outskirts of Paris to a closed ward without mirrors, reserved for those who have been disfigured. He will never know the incredible hardships his comrades will suffer in the trenches, nor the agony of a long war that most expected to last only a few months.
Instead, Adrien's war is an endless round of pain and reconstruction and this one room, which he shares with a Jewish aviator and a Breton aristocrat. Between bouts of surgery, a special bond of friendship forms among these faceless men. And when a once-beautiful woman joins their group, Adrien discovers that hope, humanity, and humor can endure even there, in the officers' ward.
Review
"A strangely moving story of friendship and psychic healing." Boston Herald
Review
"A novel of breathtaking simplicity and power...the complex tragedies and joys of suffering human beings." Times on Saturday (London)
Review
"The Officers' Ward makes you wonder, 'Could I be as good as these men?'" John Griesemer, author of No One Thinks of Greenland
Synopsis
It is autumn 1914, the first days of the Great War. At a hospital on the outskirts of Paris in a room without mirrors, a young lieutenant lies scarred, his face forever disfigured by a German shell. Between bouts of surgery, he discovers that humanity and humor can endure even there.
Synopsis
In the first days of shooting in 1914, Officer Adrien F., a lieutenant in the French army, is hit by mortar fire and part of his face is blasted away. Never to know the terrible hardships his comrades will suffer in the trenches, he is sent to a hospital on the outskirts of Paris to a closed ward without mirrors, specifically reserved for those who have been disfigured.
Adrien's world becomes this one room, and his war the endless round of pain and reconstructive surgery. But among these men a special bond of friendship is created, and when their select group is joined by a beautiful woman, Adrien discovers that hope and humanity and humor can endure even in there, in the officer's ward.
The Officer's Ward won the Prix des Libraires, the Prix Deux Magots, the Prix Notre tremps, the Prix Litterarire du Rotary Club International and the Prix du Rotary Premier Roman. It was also shortlisted for the Grand Prix of the Academie Francaise.
About the Author
Marc Dugain is forty-two and lives in Paris. The Officer's Ward is based upon the experiences of his grandfather. It is his first novel.