A Balcony in the Forest

Balcony in the Forest (French: Un balcon en forêt) is a 1958 novel by the French writer Julien Gracq. It tells the story of a French lieutenant, Grange, who is assigned to a concrete antitank blockhouse in the forest of the Ardennes in the autumn of 1939, where he waits with three enlisted men for World War II to reach that section of France. An English translation by Richard Howard was published in 1959. The book was the basis for a 1978 film with the same title directed by Michel Mitrani.