by the Belgian/Australian author Simon Leys, originally published in France by Éditions Hermann.[1] It was translated, from the original French, into English in 1991 by Patricia Clancy and the author.[2]
Napoleon escapes from his prison on St. Helena, disguised as a pudgy cabin hand on board a ship, leaving behind a double. His aim is to re-enter France and re-establish his power base. But his ship is rerouted from Bourdeaux to Antwerp and he enters Europe alone and with no support. As he travels back into France he visits the battlefield at Waterloo which has now been turned into a tourist attraction.
Critical reception
Reviewing the English translation for The Times Literary Supplement D. J. Enright called the novel "an elegant and engaging piece of alternative history, gently tragic and wryly comic".
In The Age Peter Craven saw much greater depths in the novella beyond the simple story of its plot: "The Death of Napoleon is only in the pretextual sense a novella about Bonaparte. 'Napoleon' is rather the form of words that comes to stand for an identity that is foresaken, the forlornness of the self that is unacknowledged and finds no image in the world's mirror."[4]
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