Colas Breugnon

Romain Rolland was a French novelist and playwright, a Nobel Prize laureate in Literature—“for the high idealism of literary works, for his compassion and love of truth with which he describes various human types.” His novella “Colas Breugnon” critics call “one of the most life-affirming works of world literature.”

A chatterer and a fun-lover—“a philosopher with a chisel and a bottle”—Colas has a rare gift: to enjoy life and everything around him. For him, work, wine, the joys of the flesh, and delicious food are equally wonderful. And whatever happens—war, plague, fire— the hero doesn’t despair and finds something good in everything. This is not the notorious “rose-colored glasses” that only inspire pity for their owner; it is genuine optimism, whose source is a huge love of life.