For French Writer, It Takes Decades to Write About His Experience in WWII

Prolific French author Jean Eugene Havel was one of the many unfortunate French people who lived under Nazi occupation. His idyllic life as a young Norman came to a sudden halt when the Germans occupied northern France and turned his hometown, Le Havre, into a fortress. For Havel, it was both a time of struggle and self-reflection.
 
His book, The Five Sisters: A Young Norman in the Second World War (Melrose Books, 2014), details Havel’s life and thoughts during a critical period of his country’s history. Truth is, writing the book was more of a struggle for the French writer who faced violence, the horrors of war, family challenges, and social struggles under the German military occupation because it forced him to recall those “not too pleasant years”. For this reason, Havel took quite a long time to finish the book.
 
Havel wrote The Five Sisters for the purpose of preserving history. He was compelled to share his experiences of World War II despite the emotional pain he felt while recalling and recounting the past. The book was all about Havel and his family struggling to survive in the chaos brought upon the Norman countryside by the Germans. But more than just sharing his experiences of the war, he offers readers his reflections on peace, liberty, and democracy.
 
Havel’s The Five Sisters: A Young Norman in the Second World War was one of the many memoirs and wartime accounts displayed at the recently-concluded 2017 BookExpo America.
 
The Five Sisters: A Young Norman in the Second World War 
Written by Jean Eugene Havel 
Published by Melrose Books 
Published date: July 25, 2014           
 
About the Author
 
JEAN EUGÈNE HAVEL is the author of over a dozen books written in French, a number of which have been translated into second and third languages. Havel claims that, “Andersen, Homer, and the Arab story-tellers made me understand our great adventure on the sea under the skies,” but that it was the Second World War which made him understand the importance of the individual human being, peace, liberty, and democracy and it has been these values which have driven his writing. Havel holds a doctorate from the Institute of Scandinavian Studies and has spent much of his later adulthood living and teaching in Ontario, Canada. The Five Sisters is his first book written in English.

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