Flammes de pierre

She sets the stage that all can recognise for its authenticity, then upon it
ambushes her audience with the unexpected. Her range is wide, finding its
finest expression in fantasy and suspense where, with nothing forbidden, wit
and humour can enjoy free rein. She also treads the realms of dream and
nightmare and in addition exhibits a keen edge of satire. She revels in
literary allusion – La Fourche is an ingenious improvisation on the Dr Faustus
theme, while 2084 predicts a chilling Orwellian future. In Liberation!
mountains fight against exploitation, turn the tables on mankind, but soon
adopt the destructive characteristics of their former oppressors. Sauvy
humanises her often dark plots with sympathetic character sketches, the result
of involvement in the cosmopolitan mountain scene of Chamonix for over three
decades.

These tales – all set around Mont Blanc – add breadth to the growing body of
modern mountaineering fiction by a talented new wave of short-story writers.
Although several individual stories have appeared in magazines and books
Flammes de Pierre is the first collection of Anne Sauvy’s work to appear in
English.