A Dreamer's Fervor

Sweeping yet intimate, bold yet tender, A Dreamer's Fervor explores the entanglement of personal and political destinies. With lyrical nuance and unflinching compassion, it invites readers into a world where courage is contagious, art is a lifeline, and even the most fragile hearts can shape history.

A Dreamer's Fervor is a luminous literary odyssey that spans continents, generations, and the turbulent heart of the twentieth century. In this masterfully written modern epic, the protagonists' sensitivity, courage, and charm open secret doors. At its center is a 35-year-old Frenchman, Célestin de Quernevelle-widower, humanist, and adventuresome polyglot-who embarks on a two-year journey with his gifted nine-year-old daughter, Odile. What begins as an unconventional homeschooling adventure soon deepens into a life-altering mission.

From China to the steppes of Mongolia and the ice floes between Japan's Hokkaido and the Soviet Union's largest island in the Pacific, and from the Berlin shockingly divided by a cruel wall to the sacred heights of Mount Moses in the Sinai Peninsula, father and daughter encounter breathtaking landscapes, rare works of art, and unforgettable souls. In Leningrad in1980, they meet Dinara-Olya Naratovna, a Russian-Tatar poet imprisoned for her political verse. Her fierce intellect and quiet radiance awaken in them a new sense of purpose-and devotion.

Following bizarre clues, the little girl and her father pursue them and are moved deeply by Auschwitz survivors they befriend in Jerusalem. Later, in South Africa under apartheid, with Nelson Mandela on a desolate windswept island in the Atlantic off Cape Town, Odile bravely climbs Lion's Head. Later still, they are stunned by the collision of two great oceans at the Cape of Good Hope and the roar and grace of wild animals in a fabulous nature park without guides.

Haunted by Olya's fate, Célestin and Odile continue their journey bearing witness to the world's beauty and brutalities. They mature together, as does the love between Olya and Célestin.