Under the Sun of Satan — Georges Bernanos

Under the Sun of Satan, Georges Bernanos’s powerful debut novel, throws the reader headlong into the mystery of evil and the drama of salvation. Saturated with dramatic intensity and marked with Bernanos’s inimitable fitful style, the novel follows young Fr. Donissan, a man of fervent faith but limited intelligence, striving to serve the Lord in his rural ministry. The priest’s ability to plumb the depths of his flock’s inner lives, along with his awareness of Satan on the prowl, grant him formidable opportunities of grace—with a girl fallen prey to prostitution, with a child on the cusp of death, and with his fellow priests struggling with doubt. Meditative, keenly insightful, at times alarming, Under the Sun of Satan displays the masterful scope of Bernanos’s artistic vision, a vision which only grew in clarity with his later works.