Sylvie Brunel, author of Le Sourire de l’Alligator, presented her book at the Crocodile Farm, Pierrelatte Tropical Reserve. A place with a tourist, educational, scientific and conservatory vocation specializing in the breeding and presentation of reptiles, birds and fish.
Sylvie Brunel is a geographer, writer and professor at the Sorbonne University. Former president of Action Against Hunger, she notably published Guerrilla manual for womenAnd Let’s stop mistreating those who make us live, which received the 2023 economics book prize.
During her journey, Sylvie met Samuel Martin, the director of the Crocodile Farm, Tropical Reserve who was the initiator of this idea. He himself is the protagonist in this novel, playing the role of a veterinary hero who will be the first to recognize the alligator. An investigation that will get the whole world talking.
The alligator’s smile is a conviction, a geographical vision of the world and sustainable development. In her novel, Sylvie depicts this animal, the alligator, a miracle of adaptation which has lived on earth for nearly 250 million years. A crocodile which escapes its thieves and finds refuge in the Rhône, ending up in the Camargue. And the arrival of an alligator in this land of legends will create a global mobilization. The Crocodile Farm, the Rhône, the Camargue, everything comes together in the book to create a universe that is both fantastic and real.
Through this novel, Sylvie Brunel wishes to express the fact that there is no inevitability to collapse, the landscapes of yesterday are not those of today and will not be those of tomorrow. There are a whole bunch of events that are changing the situation and, for the writer, we have the means to fight and fight to defend ecology and protect the environment. This book is a message of love and hope for the territories, alligators and the protection of the environment.
