| A Weed for Burning | |
| Author: | Conrad Detrez |
| Title Orig: | L'Herbe à brûler |
| Orig Lang Code: | fr |
| Translator: | Lydia Davis |
| Country: | Belgium |
| Language: | French |
| Publisher: | Calmann-Lévy |
| Pub Date: | 1978 |
| English Pub Date: | 1984 |
| Pages: | 231 (French) |
| Awards: | Prix Renaudot, 1978 |
| Isbn: | 978-2702102664 |
| Preceded By: | Les plumes du coq (The Plumes of the Rooster) |
L'Herbe à brûler (A Weed for Burning) is a Belgian novel by Conrad Detrez. It is the third volume of his "hallucinated autobiography" trilogy, following Ludo (1974) and Les plumes du coq (The Plumes of the Rooster, 1975).[1] [2] Published in 1978, it was awarded the Prix Renaudot the same year and is Detrez's best-known work.[3] The novel is about a Roman Catholic from Belgium who, after years as a revolutionary in Brazil, returns to Europe and finds it enervated.[4] It was first published in English by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1984, translated by Lydia Davis.[5]