More than a century after its creation, The Story of Kullervo by J.R.R. Tolkien is now available in French. The Christian Bourgois editions published the unfinished narrative on September 17, 2026, in an edition prepared by American scholar Verlyn Flieger and translated from English by Aurélien Blanchard. The text, described as "unpublished" in the French sense, had not been recently discovered. Verlyn Flieger first transcribed and published it in 2010 in volume 7 of the academic journal Tolkien Studies, along with two essays by Tolkien on the Kalevala. A version intended for the general public then appeared in the United Kingdom with HarperCollins on August 27, 2015. Actualitté had previously announced the publication, emphasizing the incomplete and particularly dark nature of this youthful narrative. The date of composition requires some clarification. The official chronology of the Tolkien Estate places the rewriting of Kullervo in 1914, while Tolkien was studying at Exeter College, Oxford. However, in a letter to poet W.H. Auden in 1955, Tolkien dated the beginning of this work to 1912-1913. Exeter College, meanwhile, maintains a composition date of 1914-1915. Rather than the "110 years" sometimes mentioned, it is more accurate to say the text was conceived more than a century ago. Tolkien's Kullervo is inspired by the Kalevala, a large collection of traditional Finno-Carpathian songs compiled in the 19th century by Elias Lönnrot. In the story, Kullervo is an orphan with supernatural powers, raised under the authority of Untamo, who murdered his father and abducted his mother. Sold as a slave, he vows revenge but remains trapped in a tragic destiny. Tolkien mixes prose and verse in a text still strongly influenced by William Morris, an influence also noted by the Tolkien Estate. The Story of Kullervo follows the tale of Kullervo, the son of Kalervo, killed by his brother Untamo, who also seized his family. Endowed with supernatural powers from childhood, the boy survives three assassination attempts ordered by his uncle before being sold as a slave. Protected notably by Musti, a black dog with magical powers, he grows up with the desire to avenge his father. His destiny changes when he meets a young woman he seduces without knowing she is his sister Wanona, from whom he had been separated. When they discover their kinship, she commits suicide. Overwhelmed, Kullervo continues his revenge against Untamo. Since the proper narrative remains unfinished, Tolkien only retained the conclusion in the form of a synopsis: after accomplishing his revenge, Kullervo returns to the site of the incest and ends his life with his sword. This tragic trajectory will later serve as a template for that of Túrin Turambar in Tolkien's legendary saga. The importance of the narrative mainly lies in its place in the genesis of his legendary saga. In a letter from 1964, Tolkien described the story of "unfortunate Kullervo" as the "seed" of his attempt to write his own legends. The character directly prefigures Túrin Turambar, the hero of The Children of Húrin and the Silmarillion, to whom he transmits several motifs: curse, incest, revenge, and death by sword. The Tolkien Estate also classifies The Story of Kullervo among the works that preceded and nourished the construction of Middle-earth. The French volume reproduces the editorial work of Verlyn Flieger and brings together the narrative, its drafts, notes, and Tolkien's texts on the Kalevala. It joins a series of posthumous publications that continue to illuminate the margins of his work. In 2024, we revisited the Collected Poems, comprising around 70 previously unpublished texts, and last August, it was the medieval translation of Tolkien, Soul's Warde, which had never been published in its entirety before, that surfaced. With Kullervo, it is this time the literary laboratory in which Tolkien's future legendary saga is developed that becomes accessible to French-speaking readers.