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 confronts what it means to live without despair while facing the prospect of death.

 As if in opposition to the fiery glow of a setting sun, this major work, after years in the darkness, finally sees the light of day in a masterful translation. Epic in scope but intimate in expression, with a prose style that is often allusive, musical and poetic, it is a work that might be said to create its own unique genre.

Julien Gracq (1910–2007), born Louis Poirier, was a history and geography teacher by day, and a French writer by night, known for such dreamlike novels as The Castle of Argol, A Dark Stranger, The Opposing Shore (for which he refused the Prix Goncourt), and Balcony in the Forest. He was close to the surrealist movement, and André Breton in particular, to whom he devoted a critical study.