A Strange Country

by Muriel Barbery

  1865–1867

  Franco-German war.

  1870

  Aelius’s nephew finds the painting and the gray notebook in Amsterdam.

  Roberto Volpe kills him.

  Birth of Pietro Volpe.

  Petrus finds the prophecy: birth of the idea of an alliance.

  He becomes the Council’s envoy to the human world.

  1880

  Birth of Leonora Volpe.

  1900

  Death of Roberto Volpe.

  Gustavo marries Leonora.

  A hare elf from Inari (Solon to humans) is elected Head of the Council, Tagore remains Guardian of the Pavilion.

  1908

  Birth of Alejandro de Yepes and Jesús Rocamora.

  A boar elf from Ryoan (Raffaele Santangelo to humans) enters the service of the head of the garden.

  1910–1913

  First World War in the human world.

  1918

  Birth of Maria and Clara (beginning of The Life of Elves).

  Aelius discovers the contents of the gray notebook.

  1922

  Aelius builds the pavilion and the bridge in Ryoan.

  1926

  Raffaele Santangelo becomes governor of Rome.

  1928

  Clara arrives in Rome.

  1931

  First battle on the fields of Burgundy (end of The Life of Elves).

  Beginning of the inter-elfin war.

  1932

  First year of the Second World War among the humans.

  1938

  Sixth year of the war.

  Petrus finds the gray notebook.

  Last battle of the era of the mists.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks and gratitude to Jean-Baptiste Del Amo and Édith Ousset.

  Many thanks, too, to Shigenori Shibata.

  In the memory of Meziane Yaici and Sayoko Tsutsumi.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Muriel Barbery is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Europa, 2008), Gourmet Rhapsody (Europa, 2009), and The Life of Elves (Europa, 2016). She has lived in Kyoto, Amsterdam, and Paris, and now lives in the French countryside.