Meeting Cezanne

This is a gentle, evocative story of a young city boy’s summer in 1960s rural Provence. When Yannick learns that he is to stay with his Aunt Mathilde and her family in the South of France, he cannot believe his luck. He has rarely been out of Paris, and if the paintings in his mother’s beloved Cezanne book are to be believed, surely Provence is paradise itself. So begins an idyllic month for the young city boy: roaming the gentle hills and rolling valleys of Aix-en-Provence, daydreaming about his beautiful cousin Amandine; helping in his aunt and uncle’s bustling village inn in the evenings; feeling that he has come to the most wonderful place in the world. Then one evening the idyll is spoilt when an important local comes for dinner and Yannick accidentally destroys a precious drawing the man leaves behind. He could never have imagined that his mother’s hero, the world-famous Cezanne, would come to his inn, and sit at one of his tables! But still Yannick is devastated by what he has done, and resolves to make things right again. However, in so doing he makes a surprising discovery…This is a hardback gift edition, with jacket, that is beautifully illustrated inside and out by one of France’s finest illustrators.