Congratulations to Bruno Cabanes on the upcoming publication of his new monograph, "Les fantômes de l'île de Peleliu. Récit ," [The Ghosts of Peleliu Island] (Editions du Seuil, Paris, August 2025). The book examines the questions of memory and identity on Peleliu Island, in Micronesia. Retracing the war experience of Eugene B. Sledge, a young Marine who fought on the island in the fall of 1944, Cabanes undertook several research trips to Palau between 2017 and 2023. In his book, he engages in a temporal excavation, exploring the island’s jungle and intricate cave networks, and reflecting on the traces, vestiges and memories of a ten-week battle. The island’s history unfolds as a palimpsest, layered with voyages of exploration, ethnographic investigations, and successive waves of Spanish, German and Japanese colonizations. Combining travel impressions, American, Japanese and Palauan personal testimonies, archival materials, and field research, his book offers a vivid and poetic rendering of Peleliu and reveals the island in all its historical and emotional complexity. 

The book is currently available for preorder.