Régine LAPRADE
Born in 1946 in Périgord, Régine Laprade is a retired occupational physician who has lived in Brive for over 50 years. She has published novels with several publishers, often historical novels, leading some to call her a "storyteller of history." The Legend of Moussa is her eighth book published by Éditions Douro.
Aïssa Dupuy, a retired pediatrician, tells us the unusual story of her grandfather, Moussa, a Senegalese rifleman. Recruited by France in 1914 to fight the Germans, he left Dakar and joined the trenches of the Great War. After four years of nightmare, having narrowly escaped death countless times, he finally reached Bordeaux where, in early January 1920, a ship was to take him back to his country. Yet he would never see Senegal again. A curious destiny awaited him, worthy of a legend. Publication date: May 2, 2025. Order now. Press release.
In 1861, like many Bretons, Nathalie and Jérôme Le Mel fled poverty and went to try their luck in Paris. But living in the working-class neighborhoods meant encountering another kind of misery—that of the laborers. Nathalie fell under the spell of Eugène Varlin, an activist and humanist close to the Freemasons. With him, she championed the cause of the workers. As serious political and social events shook France, aided by influential women, Nathalie never ceased to support women, to come to their aid, and to defend their rights. When, during the cherry-picking season, Paris was plunged into a tragic spiral, she did not give up. On the contrary. She cried out: “We will give our lives if necessary, but we will not yield. The barricades do not frighten me. I will be there, rifle in hand.” Publication date: July 1, 2024 Order Press release
In 1975, Najat, a young Moroccan girl, arrived in Mézin, in the Lot-et-Garonne region of France. Her parents had decided to leave their country: life was too hard in the rural villages, and schooling for children was practically nonexistent. Illiteracy was rampant. They believed that education was the best way to achieve a better life. Najat was eight years old. She couldn't read, write, or speak French. She was therefore placed in the preparatory class at the Mézin school. Claire, her teacher, quickly developed admiration and affection for this courageous and tenacious girl. Her progress was rapid. A few years later, life separated them. Thirty years later, fate, with its capricious twists of fate, arranged their reunion in Brive, in the Corrèze region. Najat tells her story… and like Claire, let's listen to her. Publication date: September 1, 2023. Order now
Annie and Pascal, two young retirees from the Corrèze region, decide to move to Brittany, near Audierne, the ancestral home of Annie's family. Their relatives have all passed away; only a cousin, Pierric, remains, who helps them settle in. He is a charming, endearing man, but very introverted. He readily tells them the history of this region, divided between land and sea, farmers and sailors. With him, we rediscover forgotten events that nevertheless marked 20th-century Brittany and indeed the whole of France. On the other hand, he speaks very little about himself. Yet his life has been anything but ordinary. We discover it at the same time as Danielle, his partner, and his "Breton-style nephews," Annie and Pascal. A life full of suffering. Will Danielle, cheerful and tender, manage to convince him to live in the present? Publication date: June 1, 2023. Order now
A family. Endearing and colorful characters who, across generations, take us from Périgord to Lyon, from Burgundy to Provence, and lead us to the 1950s. It's the beginning of the "events in Algeria." Gilbert, a lawyer, steeped in his grandmother's humanist ideals, meets Monique in Marseille, a trade unionist and communist like her father. They marry. She helps Algerians who tell her about their struggle for their country's independence. The young couple, deeply committed to justice and the fundamental values of our Republic, decides to move there. They discover a magnificent country, forge friendships with ordinary workers—Muslim, Christian, Jewish—confronted with the horrors of war… Will they emerge unscathed? In France, sixty years after Algeria's independence, the media constantly address the still difficult and painful Franco-Algerian relationship. The wound has not healed. But do we know each other better today than we did yesterday? With this novel, Adel Monchaoui and Régine Laprade aim to reveal what many of us still ignore. People used to say, "Algeria is France." Yet, in the land of equality, two distinct communities coexisted with different rights. What do we truly know about this war, about events silenced and kept secret? The silence is beginning to break. Alas, many witnesses have passed away. Current generations, neither guilty nor responsible, demand to hear history presented differently, not through truncated, concealed, and distorted realities shaped by a racist, resentful psychology that continues to divide people, leading to mutual ignorance. Order now
In less than a year, a quiet, previously uneventful little provincial village is shaken by three surprising events. Jacky's widow behaves shockingly. Soon labeled a "merry widow," rumors circulate that she may have killed her husband. On Christmas Eve, Guillaume, soon to be a father, mysteriously disappears. The day after the neighborhood party, a young woman is gunned down in cold blood on her doorstep. The town shudders with fear. What is happening? Is there a connection between these three tragedies? Undoubtedly, yes: the townspeople themselves. Friends, neighbors, relatives—everyone knows each other. The bakery and the supermarket become the preferred meeting places to exchange theories and news, to reassure or worry, to support or attack one another. Order now
This novel tells the story of a young man, Akli. He is Berber, one of those proud, courageous, determined men, devoted to justice and freedom. He could have been born elsewhere, among another people, in another country. It doesn't matter. He is their alter ego; the story would be the same. He comes from a small, poor village perched on a mountainside. His father taught him that at school, you have to work hard to be first, that education is a bulwark against poverty... Order now
This novel is a love story. To speak to us of love for the Other, Régine Laprade tells us a beautiful tale, which Dr. JF Saint-Bauzel, a psychiatrist, comments on as follows: “Régine hasn't fallen into the trap of the cuckoo's nest, nor into criticizing the arbitrary system of confinement. She hasn't gone so far as to portray the mentally ill as a dangerous threat to society, a threat that should be defended against them. No, she presents us with a completely different aspect of psychiatric care, which isn't ashamed to call itself that because it is in keeping with humanist principles, and she brings it to life before our astonished and delighted eyes, showing us that it's still possible to think this way.” Order now
