Matteo Falcone. Novellas

Prosper Mérimée (1803—1870) — French writer and translator, public and political figure, historian, ethnographer, and archaeologist — went down in the history of world literature as an unmatched master of the novella genre. Mérimée was one of the first Europeans to truly appreciate Russian literature. Thanks to his translations into French, Western readers became acquainted with the works of A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol. Mérimée was a great admirer of I.S. Turgenev's work and wrote a preface to the translation of his novel «Fathers and Sons». For his novellas, Mérimée chooses exotic places and vibrant characters. Thus, the action of the novella «Matteo Falcone» (1829) unfolds on the shores of Corsica, «the homeland of Corsican shepherds and all those at odds with justice». Ten-year-old Fortunato — the son of Matteo Falcone — saves a man and then turns him over to the gendarmes. How will his father, a proud Corsican and Christian, view this?.. The daring sailor Ledu, who lost his arm in the Battle of Trafalgar but has not lost hope of going to sea again, becomes the captain of the brig «Hope» and engages in the slave trade. Thus begins the novella «Tamangos» (1829). The book also includes the novellas of P. Mérimée «Venus of Illyria», «Carmen», «The Blue Room» and others.