Jean Barois - by Roger Martin du Gard

Jean Barois, the debut novel by French author Roger Martin du Gard (1881–1958), is a bildungsroman and philosophical drama chronicling the intellectual and spiritual evolution of its protagonist amid the Dreyfus Affair. Spanning from the late 19th century to the early 20th, the 400-page narrative follows Jean Barois from his devout Catholic youth in provincial France to a radical atheist and Dreyfusard activist. Divided into four parts—"The Faith," "The Doubt," "The Struggle," and "The Faith Again"—it traces Barois's trajectory: his initial religious fervor, triggered by family piety and a sister's death; his scientific studies in Paris, where rationalism erodes his beliefs; his involvement in the Dreyfus scandal, advocating for justice against antisemitism; and his later crisis of faith during illness, leading to a tentative return to spirituality.