The Party: Before the Night of Long Knives Falls

Description

RAFAEL, Maurice. La Fiesta. Avant que ne tombe une autre nuit de longs couteaux. Éditions du Scorpion, 1950. Octavo, 219 pages, paperback. Upper margins trimmed, including front cover. Maurice Rafael is a pseudonym of Victor Maurice Élie Jean Le Page (born December 2, 1918 in Brest; died November 4, 1977 in Paris 5th arrondissement), a French author of numerous suspense novels. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Ralph Bertis, Cassini, Luigi da Costa, Ángel Gabrielli, Victor San Víctor, and Vic Volier. A prolific writer with a turbulent past, Le Page was imprisoned at Fresnes and Fontevraud penitentiaries, where he began his literary career. His prose under the name Maurice Raphaël follows the style of Céline, employing slang and controversial formulas with consistent pessimism. Like Albert Simonín, he was a master of underworld argot and a pioneer of the noir novel genre in France during the 1950s-1960s.