Published: 1994 by HarperCollins Publishers
SYNOPSIS
The greatest true story of escape and adventure ever written!
Condemned for a murder he had not committed, Henri Charrière (nicknamed Papillon) was sent to the penal colony of French Guiana. Forty-two days after his arrival he made his first break, travelling a thousand gruelling miles in an open boat. Recaptured, he went into solitary confinement and was sent eventually to Devil's Island, a hell-hole of disease and brutality. No one had ever escaped from this notorious prison - no one until Papillon took to the shark-infested sea supported only by a makeshift coconut-sack raft. In thirteen years he made nine daring escapes, living through many fantastic adventures while on the run - including a sojourn with South American Indians whose women Papillon found welcomely free of European restraints ...
Papillon is filled with tension, adventure and high excitement. It is also one of the most vivid stories of human endurance ever written.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
"Henri Charrière was a convicted murderer chiefly known as the author of Papillon, a hugely successful memoir of his incarceration in and escape from a penal colony on French Guiana."
SOURCE: Goodreads
RATING
4 out of 5
REVIEW
This book presents one of the most colorful real life adventures I've read about. Vividly written in detail by a man wrongfully convicted of a crime he never committed, Henri Charrière recalled his more than a decade's journey of escaping many prisons throughout France and South America, in pursuit of his own freedom, even if it meant sacrificing his own life.
It has been 4 years since I purchased this book at my favorite bookstore in Qatar; however, I still remember how brilliantly written this true-to-life account was. I remember having at first felt angered about how he had to deal with his situation as he was finally convicted wrongly by the judge who handled his case. However, has he was telling his story, Charrière was showing that he wasn't the only person who fell victim to his situation. Even among the accused, he showed that not every one who was accused a criminal was actually proven to be such. He openly loathed the officials who served his country once, and how injustice was commonplace during criminal trials like the one he experienced..
However, Charrière wasn't all about seeking revenge against those who wrongfully brought him to where he was. As he continued to move from prison to prison, he discovers people who displayed genuine acts of kindness to him. I got attached to his story about his time with the Goajira tribe of Columbia who, even having treated him with hostility at first, became one of Charrière's signs of hope that humaneness still existed among people.
The only part of this story I didn't like was during his stay to one of the prisons (the name I can't recall at this point) where he hallucinated about his experiences with the Goajira. At this point Charrière was being punished by being sent to a much harsher and deadlier prison in South America where he had barely little hope of escaping while he stayed there. He ended up dreaming about how beautiful his time was spending with the wholesome tribe he met in Columbia before being sent back to prison somewhere in French Guiana.
I would definitely re-read the novel again for its wonderful mix of ill-natured and sympathetic characters and Henri Charrière's wonderfully humane storytelling. I recommend reading this book for its natural combination of exciting action-filled scenes and melancholic, dull moments of pure solitary thought.
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