author
Henry Daguerches
1876–1939
A French army officer turned novelist and poet, he wrote with firsthand knowledge of colonial Indochina and won readers with vivid, often critical fiction. Best known today for Le kilomètre 83, he remains an intriguing voice from early 20th-century French literature.
1 Audiobook
Le kilomètre 83
by Henry Daguerches
About the author
Born Charles Valat in Toulon on March 10, 1876, he wrote under the pen name Henry Daguerches. Sources describe him as a graduate of the École polytechnique, an artillery officer, and a French colonial writer whose work drew on his experience in Indochina.
He wrote novels, poetry, and drama, but he is most closely associated with fiction about French Indochina. Le kilomètre 83, first published in 1928, is the work most often linked to his name today, and his writing is remembered for combining adventure, observation, and a more questioning view of colonial life than many of his contemporaries.
Daguerches died in March 1939. Although he is not widely known now, library and literary reference sources still place him among the notable French writers connected with Indochina in the early 1900s.