The Statuary Gardens

“Jacques Abeille once said that he wrote The Statuary Gardens ‘in the grip of a waking dream’…. Though it belongs to a tradition that includes Dino Buzzati, J. M. Coetzee, and Julien Gracq, it is a novel beyond compare.” —Bernard Noël


“A philosophical tale of fascinating strangeness…. Abeille’s language is ornate and finely wrought, musical and solemn, hypnotic and meditative—not to mention archaic, wild, visceral.” —Philippe-Jean Catinchi, Le Monde

Jacques Abeille (1942-2022) was born in Lyon, France. His father, Valentin, a member of the French Resistance, cared for him until he was killed in action in 1944. Abeille was then adopted by his father’s identical twin brother, who moved him to Guadeloupe and eventually settled in Bordeaux. Having studied ethnology, psychology, and philosophy, Abeille became an art teacher. He spoke of his life as a “banal provincial instructor” and family man as a way of triumphing over the eccentricity of his upbringing, though he always felt “the need to cultivate a secret garden,” which, after he abandoned painting in the 1970s, was literature. He first published erotica under the pseudonym Bartleby, meanwhile composing The Statuary Gardens, which was published in 1982. It was the first in what would become a ten-volume series called the Cycle des Contrees—an epic of interlocking imaginary worlds.

Alex Andriesse is an editor at New York Review Books. He has translated, in addition to three volumes of Memoirs from Beyond the Grave (a final volume is forthcoming from NYRB Classics), Cristina Campo’s The Unforgivable and Other Writings, Jacques Dupin’s Notched, and Jean-Pierre Martinet’s With Their Hearts in Their Boots.

Brian Evenson is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection A Collapse of Horses and the novella The Warren. He has also recently published Windeye and Immobility, both of which were finalists for a Shirley Jackson Award. His novel Last Days won the American Library Association’s award for Best Horror Novel of 2009. His novel The Open Curtain was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Fremon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, and several other writers. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Critical Studies Program at CalArts.

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