Fermina Márquez
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Fermina Márquez is a short novel in twenty chapters written by French writer Valery Larbaud. It was considered for the Prix Goncourt in 1911 but did not win. Nonetheless, it is still considered to be a minor classic of French Literature and one of Larbaud's best known works along with his Diary of A.O. Barnabooth.
The story concerns the arrival of a young girl from Colombia at Saint Augustine's, a Roman Catholic school for boys located near Paris, and her effect on the young men there; in particular on a bookish and solitary student named Joanny Léniot. The eponymous Fermina Márquez arrives at the school with her aunt, sister, and younger brother "little Márquez," who has just been enrolled there as a student. His family makes an arrangement with the school authorities whereby they are allowed to visit him at Saint Augustine's for a time until he becomes adjusted to life at his new school. The students are entranced by Fermina's beauty and proximity, and each of them begins to fantasize about her and to look for opportunities to seduce her.
