Sebastien, Your Son

This is a memoir by a close friend of a family struck down by tragedy. French writer Claire Deveze details the personal sufferings of her best friend and the death of her friend's son by cancer. The loving distance of friendship allows for an intense description of events which would be impossible to bear, perhaps, if told by the mother. As it is, the pains and joys of a close group of friends, as they live their friend's painful experiences, are expressed beautifully in this loving tribute to the son, Sebastien, and to the possibilities and limitations of friendship.

Published in France in 2002, Sebastien, Your Son, is a loving tribute to mother and child as well as a beautiful portrait of adult relationships. Deveze, the wife of the French cultural attaché to Sweden, Laurent Deveze, is also a poet, who had a previous book, Voyage de Thomas Cajetan Wegierski, published in France.