Julien Gracq's second novel "Un beau ténébreux" was published in 1945 and is now appearing for the first time in German translation, almost 70 years later, as the last of his major prose works. A prestigious beach hotel in Brittany. Among the guests is the literary scholar Gérard, who is working on a study about Rimbaud and informs us about the other guests in his diary. The languid holiday atmosphere changes abruptly when a new, fascinating guest, both intelligent and beautiful, arrives accompanied by an equally beautiful woman, captivating those present and disrupting the arrangement of couples and the order of feelings. Gracq engages with the debate on suicide led by the Surrealists and transforms it into a philosophical-narrative event. But not only Surrealism is evoked; numerous other intertextual references are also present.