Dimitri Delmas novelizes Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal

Dimitri Delmas, a French illustrator, designer, and writer, has published a novel titled "J'avais bâti dans un rêve un palais" about Ferdinand Cheval, the postman who built the Palais Idéal in Hauterives, Drôme, southeastern France. Cheval, born in 1836 in Charmes sur l'Herbasse, left school at 13, became a baker, then a postman in 1867. In 1879, he tripped on a strange stone and decided to build a palace alone using stones collected during his rounds. Working evenings with a wheelbarrow, shovel, and oil lamp, he mixed cement, lime, and wire to create a 26-meter-long, 12-meter-high, 10-meter-wide structure inspired by postcards, magazines, and his dreams, completed in 1912 despite mockery. He died in 1924. The novel is published by Actes Sud.