J R Koenig

A new translation of "l'Enfant perdu et retrouve ou Pierre Cholet" by J.-B. Proulx with new maps, notes, and illus. is for all readers of adventure stories and history. It is a true story of one man's perseverance despite his many hardships to return home. In 1845, five-year-old Pierre Cholet is kidnapped along with his brother and cousin from rural Quebec. The kidnapper eludes a manhunt of 400 parishioners and sells the boys to a French sea captain sailing to St. Malo, France. Thirty-six years later, Cholet alone returns home. Cholet tells his story to the author J.-B. Proulx, relating the fate of the other two boys, his hard life as a sailor on the high seas, his shipwrecks, his escape and near death in Labrador's wilderness, and his decade of searching throughout eastern Canada for his parents. Proulx combines his literary skills with Cholet's talents as a raconteur to produce both an enthralling tale and a brief history of French Canadian life.