The Sunset Lands

Translated by George MacLennan, with an afterword by Bernhild Boie / April 2026 / 5.375 x 8, 248 pp. / 978-1-962728-11-9 “The world of Julien Gracq is a world of qualities—in other words, a magical world.”—Maurice Blanchot The Sunset Lands, written in the mid-1950s but only published posthumously half a century later, portrays both a world and the ending of that world in terms that draw on myth, symbol, fable, and history. The Kingdom, a declining civilization, is threatened at its borders by a barbarian invasion. An unnamed narrator sets out, with a small group of companions, to confront a threat which the Kingdom’s authorities stubbornly refuse to acknowledge.   What begins as a quest narrative as the group journeys through the varied landscapes of the Kingdom to the besieged frontier city of Roscharta gradually shifts into something much darker in tone. With Gracq’s own wartime experiences informing this exploration of barbaric horrors and existential destinies, The Sunset Lands con