“Haddad [is] that rare writer who opens his arms to chimeras and takes violent hold of life… without regard for fashion, he has been building a veritable body of work.” ~ Le Monde

The story is by now modern legend: in October 1972, a small Fokker Fairchild bearing a Uruguayan soccer team crashed at an altitude of more than 12,000 feet in the Andes. The tale of the passengers who took to cannibalism shocked the world. First published by Albin Michel just three years after the horrifying event, La Cène, Haddad’s second novel, has been brought back into print by Zulma in their Dilecta collection, dedicated to rediscovered classics.

Marquès is a drunk and cynical journalist assigned to the team. The self-pitying reporter contrasts sharply with the pious and jocular young players, often the butt of their healthful exhortations to improve his life and lot. Sporting sons of a Catholic haute bourgeoisie, their devoutness is revealed as hypocrisy when they use the religion to justify their acts, making a perverse communion of cannibalism. Marquès the disbeliever, the only survivor to refuse, becomes the lone voice of humanity in this extreme wilderness, his sole light the memories of his lost love Isabel.