''The Erl-King'' (french: Le Roi des aulnes) is a 1970 novel by the French writer

Michel Tournier Michel Tournier (; 19 December 1924 − 18 January 2016) was a French writer. He won awards such as the ''Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française'' in 1967 for '' Friday, or, The Other Island'' and the Prix Goncourt for '' The Erl-King'' i ...

. It is also known as ''The Ogre''. It tells the story of a man who recruits children to be Nazis in the belief that he is protecting them. The novel received the

Prix Goncourt The Prix Goncourt (french: Le prix Goncourt, , ''The Goncourt Prize'') is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward o ...

. The 1996 film '' The Ogre'', directed by

Volker Schlöndorff Volker Schlöndorff (; born 31 March 1939 Friday) is a German film director, screenwriter and producer who has worked in Germany, France and the United States. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s, ...

, is based on the novel.

Summary

The story is about Abel Tiffauges, who attends the Saint-Christophe boarding-school where he meets Nestor, a privileged student who will take him under his wing and adore him so much as to let him indulge his obsessions. Abel first writes about his childhood and his life in life before 1939 in his personal diary. After World War I, Abel finds himself being a dedicated pigeon keeper and a soldier in

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

. Then, he is taken prisoner and deported throughout

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

East Prussia East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...

(German region that corresponds to the current

Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad Oblast (russian: Калинингра́дская о́бласть, translit=Kaliningradskaya oblast') is the westernmost federal subject of Russia. It is a semi-exclave situated on the Baltic Sea. The largest city and administr ...

/Königsberg in Western

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

). He will later be imprisoned in the Moorhof camp (close to Insterburg – today

Chernyakhovsk Chernyakhovsk (russian: Черняхо́вск) – known prior to 1946 by its German name of (Old Prussian: Instrāpils, lt, Įsrutis; pl, Wystruć) – is a town in the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, where it is the administrative center of ...

– and to Gumbinnen – today Gusev), and will then make it to the reservation of Rominten (in the South-Eastern part of

), in the hunting ground of Göring he calls "the ogre of Rominten". He then finds himself having to recruit children in the Mazurian region. He saves Ephraïm, a Jewish boy who came from a Lithuanian camp and escapes while carrying him on his back through swamps. The novel ends with the following sentence:

References

1970 French novels Novels by Michel Tournier Novels set during World War II French novels adapted into films Prix Goncourt winning works Éditions Gallimard books {{1970s-WWII-novel-stub

Summary

See also

References