Tropic Moon
Tropic Moon, originally Coup de Lune, is a 1933 novel by Belgian author Georges Simenon. It is one of his early “hard novels” and uses a dark, noir tone to explore French attitudes toward Africans and life in the French colonies. The story, told in third‑person limited narration and divided into thirteen chapters, follows a young Frenchman, Joseph Timar, who travels from La Rochelle to Libreville in Gabon to work for a logging company that his uncle arranged for him. When the job isn’t available, Timar lodges at a hotel and spends his time with local loggers and officials. He has a sudden affair with Adèle, the hotel owner’s wife, which sets off a chain of murders, betrayals, and moral unraveling.
As events unfold, Timar learns that Adèle is involved in deceit and murder to protect herself and her lovers. After a night of drinking with the locals and a traumatic river journey, Timar becomes seriously ill with dengue fever. Returning to Libreville for treatment, he discovers that Adèle has manipulated witnesses to frame an innocent villager for the murder of a servant, and he realizes she was responsible for the earlier crimes. The shock drives him into madness as he is shipped back to France.
Two English translations exist: the early version by Stuart Gilbert and a later one by Marc Romano (NYRB Classics, 2009). The novel inspired Serge Gainsbourg’s 1983 film Équateur. Coup de Lune was originally published in French by Fayard in 1933.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 14:10 (CET).