In your novels, you are used to dealing with dark and harsh subjects: war, terrorism, Gaddafi… But this time, in Coeur d’amende, you tell the story of a dwarf and his grandmother in the middle of a band and a district of Montmartre marked by kindness and solidarity. It’s an almost feelgood book…
Not feelgood… It’s a book that feels good. I needed a book that could make me feel good…
To you?
For me, yes… The world is going into a tailspin, hatred is increasing with, in the middle of all this, a human being who no longer knows where to turn. I didn’t want to lose my discernment, I wrote this book and it helped me a lot. It helped me understand that while the world is crazy, people may not be.
Your hero is called Nestor, he is a small person…
Like me… I’m not a giant… When I was seventeen, a girl I liked and corresponded with told me, when she saw me on the first date, that she was disappointed. She had imagined me as beautiful as my prose, but when she saw me…
But you dated her?
No way! She told me it was the first and last time we saw each other.
Do you know all these characters, these contraband cigarette sellers, these bar drunks?
Of course. When Paris beats me up, I go to Montmartre. I see people living their lives not really giving a damn about what’s going on around them. In their heads, a laugh can silence all guns.
Do you go to cafes?
Yes, I find a place and sit on a terrace and watch. I see the world go by, I see lives go by… It’s a bit like I’m turning pages…
When does Paris get on your nerves?
All the time. Everyone is stressed, everyone is running… I spend more time in Oran than in Paris… In Paris, I have no friends…
You don’t have any friends in Paris?
Non.
It’s hard to believe… You are successful, you have had awards…
Since 2008, I have been excluded from all literary institutions, I am never on any list, not even on the prize list of the local teller. My prize is my readership.
You have resentment…
No. I understood that the only benchmark is my readership, the rest doesn’t matter…
What military stuff do you have left?
All. I’m not rejecting anything at all, but is it the army or is it me who made me what I am. I belong to a dynasty that has existed for six centuries, among my ancestors, there are scholars, scholars…
Are you a disciplined man?
No, on the contrary, I am a rebellious man. Even in the army, I was rebellious. But I am an enlightened rebel.
Do you know Brussels well?
I love Brussels. I find here what I can’t find in Paris… Firstly, on a professional level, I know that in France, many journalists talk about books they haven’t read…
And the Belgian journalists?
They are more professional and have a rare intellectual honesty.
HEART OF FINE, Mialet-Barrault, 313 p.
