Work

Journey to the End of the Night

Overview

Journey to the End of the Night (French: Voyage au bout de la nuit, 1932) is the first novel by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This semi-autobiographical work follows the adventures of Ferdinand Bardamu in World War I, colonial Africa, the United States and the poor suburbs of Paris where he works as a doctor.

The novel won the Prix Renaudot in 1932 but divided critics due to the author's pessimistic depiction of the human condition and his innovative writing style based on working class speech, slang and neologisms. It is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Philosophers who discussed Journey to the End of the Night

• Jean-Paul Sartre

Related ideas

• Neologism
• The Guardian
• World War I
• Detroit
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline
• Les Nouvelles littéraires

Place in the tradition

Part of Existentialism.

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