Who was Victor Segalen? The bulk of this writer-travellers' work is unfinished and he disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Jean-Luc Coatalem takes us with him as he tracks down Segalen from China's Forbidden City to the forests of Brittany. May 1919. Victor Segalen is found lying dead in a small wood in Brittany. Starting with the mystery surrounding Segalen's death - suicide? Accident? - Jean-Luc Coatalem traces the writer-traveller's journeys. Soldier, sailor, poet, author of a labyrinthine body of work that no one knew even existed in his own life time. In 1903, Segalen followed pilgrim-like in Gauguin's footsteps on a trip to the Marquesas Islands. In 1905, it was Djibouti, emulating Rimbaud. In 1910, he ventured into the maze of Peking's Forbidden City, following a seductive young man who was a spy and the empress's lover. He died at the age of forty-one in the lengendary Huelgoat forest, with a copy of Hamlet in his hand, a deep cut in one leg, perched above a chasm, far from his wife and the other woman he loved. May 1919. Victor Segalen is found dead, lying in a small wood, in the heart of Finistère. Starting from the mystery surrounding the death of Segalen, suicide? accident ?, Jean-Luc Coatalem follows the footprints of the writer-traveler, Breton, like him, also Brestois. Military, sailor and poet, author of a labyrinthic work that no one suspected during his lifetime. In 1903, Segalen traveled in the footsteps of Gauguin, in the Marquesas Islands. In 1905, in Djibouti, those of Rimbaud. In 1909, he crossed China, by junk, train and horse, and he began again. In 1910, he ventured into the labyrinth of the Forbidden City of Beijing, behind a seductive young man, a spy and a lover of the Empress. Then he resides alone in Hanoi, dreams in Tibet, and buys his opium. He died at the age of forty-one, in the legendary forest of Huelgoat, a Shakespeare in his hand, his leg notched, above a Chasm, far from his wife and that other woman he loves. Revisiting iting the work of Segalen, the letters to his two loves, his numerous voyages, Coatalem reveals the resonances, numerous, literary complicity and companion writer, composing by these mixed prisms, the novel of his life, of a living and vibrant Segalen.--Lecteurs.com.