A new translation (2020) of Octave Mirbeau’s novel In the Sky, an early work of literary modernism exploring the psychological and emotional turmoil that can consume the life of an artist. This is followed by a selection from Mirbeau’s prolific output as a short story writer, six strange tales of desperate struggles for love, respect and sanity. In the Sky: A man reluctantly visits an old friend (referred to as X) in an isolated, run-down house perched on a high peak. X is unable to bring himself to tell his visitor all that he wants to say, so he hands him a dirty roll of papers and sends him away. In these writings, X describes his unhappy childhood and fateful meeting with the volatile painter Lucien, who takes him to Paris to begin a new life and witness the tortured existence of an artist. This is followed by six short stories: Towards Happiness, The Cellar Rat, The Maid, One Point of View, Number 24 and The Dead Child. Octave Mirbeau was an influential art critic and journalist, and one of the most innovative and subversive literary authors of his time. In addition to theatrical plays and hundreds of short stories, he wrote eleven novels, including Abbé Jules, Torture Garden and Diary of a Chambermaid. He died on his sixty-ninth birthday in 1917.
