Country France Publisher Éditions du Scorpion | Language French | |
Author Original title J'irai cracher sur vos tombes Translator Boris Vian
Milton Rosenthal | ||
I Spit on Your Graves (French: J'irai cracher sur vos tombes) is a 1946 crime novel by the French writer Boris Vian, published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan. The story is set in the United States and revolves around a sexual and racial conflict.
Contents
Reception
Chris Petit of The Guardian reviewed the book in 2001, and called it "dreamily convincing", elaborating: "A main inspiration would have been the slew of Hollywood movies that opened in Paris after the liberation, identified by the French as films noirs. I Spit... is straight noir, but also a work of liberated imagination after four years of Nazi occupation: heady, abandoned, fevered and lubricious. A fusion of prime US pulp and French sado-eroticism[.]"
Adaptation
The book was adapted into a film with the same title directed by Michel Gast. Vian had already publicly denounced the adaptation while it was in production, but attended the premiere on 23 June 1959. A few minutes into the screening, he stood up and began to shout out his dissatisfaction with the film, and while doing so, he suddenly collapsed and died from sudden cardiac death. The Ambulance crew and doctor that arrived on the scene failed to revive him.