André Gide - O Imoralista

The great book that launched the novelist career of the future Nobel laureate.
Originally published in 1902, this short novel by André Gide caused a great scandal in France.

An anonymous character recounts the story of Michel's life, as he confided it to a small circle of friends. Michel, a young man from a good family, a scholar with little inclination towards the temptations of the flesh, marries a devout young woman who harbors much deeper feelings for him than her husband has for her.

During their honeymoon in North Africa, Michel falls ill and fights for his life in Algeria. Despite all the care and devotion of his wife, it is the sight of two boys playing in the street that makes him resist. His convalescence is almost a rebirth. Michel escapes the illness by becoming a new man: energetic, active, attentive to the needs of his body and unable to resist sensuality, regardless of how it presents itself to him.

What follows is a description of the hero's subversive process as he plunges into immorality. His newfound hunger for life transcends all social rules and standards. What begins as a dream trip for the young couple becomes a journey to break the rules of contemporary society and ends in tragedy.

The ideological break with the established patterns of French literature propelled Gide into the literary spotlight, making him admired by many and reviled by others, but also securing him the position of literary renovator that he would maintain throughout his career.