Arch of Triumph (novel)
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| Arch of Triumph | |
| Author | Erich Maria Remarque |
|---|---|
| Original title | Arc de Triomphe |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Genre(s) | War novel |
| Publication date | 1945 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 455 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
Arch of Triumph (German: Arc de Triomphe) is a 1946 novel by Erich Maria Remarque. In it, he writes about stateless refugees' life in Paris before World War II.
[edit] Plot summary
It is 1939, and, despite having no permission to perform surgery, Ravic, a very accomplished German surgeon and a stateless refugee living in Paris, has been ghost-operating on patients for two years on the behalf of two less skillful French physicians.
Unwilling to return to Nazi Germany which stripped him of his citizenship, and unable to legally exist anywhere else in pre-war western Europe, Ravic manages to hang on. He is one of many displaced persons without passports or any other documents, who live under a constant threat of being captured and deported from one country to the next, and back again (see Remarque's earlier novel Flotsam for an expansive treatment of this theme).
Though Ravic has given up on the possibility of love, life has a curious way of taking a turn for the romantic, even during the worst of times, as he cautiously befriends an actress.
Ravic's character makes a brief appearance in Remarque's last novel, Shadows in Paradise.
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