In C'est la guerre Louis Calaferte presents the World War II--from the moment its outbreak is announced to the public through the unprecedented disaster that ensues, and through France's liberation in 1945--as it registers itself in the ever more isolated consciousness of a young, nameless boy.

Louis Calaferte was born in Turin in 1928. He was a playwright, poet, and writer of prose. The Way It Works with Women, published by the Marlboro Press/Northwestern in 1998, was the first of his many novels to be translated into English.

Austryn Wainhouse is the founder of the Marlboro Press and has translated the works of the Marquis de Sade and Simone de Beauvoir, among others.

"Bracingly unsentimental, [it] is a remarkable song of innocence sung in perfect pitch." --St. Petersburg Times

"In compact and visceral detail, Calaferte succeeds in portraying this terrifying and shameful period in French history, when nearly everyone--especially seemingly innocent villagers--is guilty of crimes against humanity." --Publishers Weekly

"One's will can be deployed at others' expense, a fundamental ambivalence that Calaferte . . . often brought to light. Because of this excruciating honesty, he produced some of the most troubling writings of recent times." --Times Literary Supplement