In his nineteenth book, author Michel Rederon paints the portrait of a free woman confronted with the evils of our time.
Michel Rederon, your nineteenth book, “Les résilientes”, addresses memory, the search for identity, guilt, so many common threads in your novels, but also current themes. How was he born?
I wanted to paint a portrait of a free, active, modern woman, confronted with men and the problems of our time, Covid-19, wars, machismo, the defense of minorities, anti-Semitism… I wanted to speak resilience: it is a strategy for combating misfortune.
Your heroine, Aurélie, became amnesiac at the age of 12, in a car accident which killed her parents. Having survived Covid, she will launch an investigation to trace her past. She will be confronted by a pedophile rapist…
This is our current world, our everyday life. I address the place of women in our society. I cling to the news. At 85, I no longer have too many ambitions, I write what I want to write. And I really enjoy it. It’s an outlet to get rid of problems.
Will you present this novel in literary fairs?
Yes, I have just returned from Livres en vignes, which takes place in Burgundy, and I will go to Colmar in November. I find loyal readers there because my readers are in the center-east of France. I was born and lived in Burgundy. My granddaughter was born in Alsace. This region of France is more familiar to me. I arrived in Nîmes in 2003: the South is not my culture.
Have you started writing your twentieth book?
No, I’m waiting for an idea to germinate during my three-week stay in Canada.
