François Garde in conversation with Mike Shuttleworth

What Became of the White Savage
Author: François Garde

Translator: Aneesa Abbas Higgins   Cover design: Marie Lane 

What Became of the White Savage enjoyed phenomenal success in France where it won nine literary prizes including the prestigious Goncourt Prize in the first novel category.

Sometime in the 1840s, Narcisse, a young French sailor is abandoned on the coast of Australia and given up for dead by his shipmates. Seventeen years later he is found living among aboriginal peoples, having apparently forgotten everything of his original identity, including his native French language. Octave de Vallombrun, a well-meaning geographer, takes him under his wing and sets out to bring Narcisse, now known as the “white savage” back to civilisation and to find out what happened during those seventeen years.

Observing Narcisse’s struggle to adjust to the ways of the white man, Octave too begins to question his assumptions about what it means to be civilised, and to see in a new light the man known as the “white savage”.

Mike Shuttleworth

Mike Shuttleworth has been reading, writing about and working in the literature sector for more than two decades. From 2011-2015 he was the Melbourne Writers Festival’s literary program manager. He was also Director of the Festival's highly successful Schools' Program. Mike is also a literary critic, librarian and curator. He travels regularly to France, attending literary festivals and exploring his interests in French culture and society. He is the creator of the website  frenchpicturebooks.com