Home > Authors > Jean-François Haas > L'homme qui voulut acheter une ville
L'homme qui voulut acheter une ville
In rural Fribourg Canton, Switzerland, three former companions gather for the funeral of a friend. Against her father's wishes, Gabriella fell in love with the deceased, but she eventually gave in to her father, quit school, and married the man he had chosen for her. Tragically, she never saw the deceased again. Gabriella and two other persons remember their friend, with whom they grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, and whose most recent moment of madness was to buy the town of Buford, Wyoming in the hopes that it would be a haven for refugees. The three reminisce about their lives as Italian immigrant children in a small Swiss village, influenced by the anti-immigrant xenophobia of James Schwarzenbach.