Operation Rimbaud

by Jacques Godbout, Patricia Claxton (Translator)

It’s 1967 and Michel Larochelle — a Jesuit, an agnostic, and a spy — meets with Hailé Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, King of Kings, Lion of Judah — in a suite at Montreal’s Windsor Hotel. Larochelle has been asked to perform a mission dubbed “Operation Rimbaud.” He expects his latest job to be unusual, but learns that what he’s asked to do is closer to astonishing. The Emperor claims that within his kingdom are artifacts of incredible power and the Tablets of the Law, the pair of stone carvings bearing the Ten Commandments, the actual word of God. Selassie wants Larochelle to steal them. Thus follows a journey into a land on the brink of revolution and set against the worldwide cultural upheaval of the 1960s, challenging the very system embodied by the tablets. Caught in the turmoil, Larochelle’s greatest challenge lies not in the forces intent on claiming the tablets for themselves, but in reconciling the actions he takes and the passions he indulges, while serving a Church and a God he no longer believes in.

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999