One of the great mavericks of French literature, Georges Bernanos combined raw realism with a spiritual focus of visionary intensity. Mouchette stands with his celebrated <i>Diary of a Country Priest</i> as the perfection of his singular art.<br><br>“Nothing but a little savage” is how the village school-teacher describes fourteen-year-old Mouchette, and that view is echoed by every right-thinking local citizen. Mouchette herself doesn't bother to contradict it; ragged, foulmouthed, dirt-poor, a born liar and loser, she knows herself to be, in the words of the story, “alone, completely alone, against everyone.” Hers is a tale of “tragic solitude” in which despair and salvation appear to be inextricably intertwined. <br><br>Bernanos uncompromising genius was a powerful inspiration to Flannery O'Connor, and <i>Mouchette</i> was the source of a celebrated movie by Robert Bresson.