Review

The Way of the Kings

By André Malraux

Published by Hesperus Press

Claude and Perken meet on a liner heading for Indo-China, and throw in their lots together to form a dual expedition into the perilous Cambodian jungle.

Claude, a young Frenchman, is seeking adventure, fame, and money; Perken, an experienced Dutch explorer, is returning to his own little patch of Siam, aiming to recapture his former masculine pride, and appalled by the coming of age and its effects.

The two face death at every turn from the seething forest and ‘bestial’ tribes people, but are driven to leave their stamp on a world on the eve of its demise, in defiance of the advance of the railroad and ‘civilisation’, and the term of their own fragile lives.

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Translator: Howard Curtis