With “Over there my love, the forgotten archipelago”, Michelle Devinant, the president of the Friends of Michèle Desbordes association, pays a new tribute to the Orléans writer and former general curator of the Orléans university library. A way of inviting the public “to reread a major work of French literature”.
A tireless admirer of Michèle Desbordes, Michelle Devinant publishes a new story, Over there my love, the forgotten archipelagofrom Corsaire Éditions. The author – who worked as a librarian alongside the general curator of the library of the University of Orléans and founded, in 2016, the association of Friends of Michèle Desbordes – shares an essential discovery in the work of the writer. A discovery which relates to “this land, Guadeloupe…”
In Orléans, Les Amis de Michèle Desbordes invite another Michèle to talk about her work
“By searching through the legacy of Michèle and Jacques Desbordes at the Orléans media library, I found new hooks on an episode in her life that Michèle Desbordes never spoke about…” explains Michelle Devinant. And the author begins her story thus:
“I need to talk about you […]. From this moment in your life that you name with a single word to your satisfaction. Exile. Because he was the founder of your life as a free woman, as a writer. From this land, Guadeloupe, where you stayed for almost eight years from 1986 to 1993.
Michelle Guessing (Orleanse author)
More than a thread, Michelle Devinant unrolls a real ball of the work that Michèle Desbordes developed there: “she participated in a real reading policy, particularly towards children, contributed to setting up the Caraïbe media library on a territory where, until then, there were only small libraries run by volunteers But above all, continues Michelle Devinant, she organized meetings with exceptional writers during sessions entitled “The books of my life”. Meetings of great intellectual wealth from which she was unable to emerge unscathed and which undoubtedly shaped her future work as a writer”, assures Michelle Devinant.
A story like an investigation
These discoveries allowed Michelle Devinant a new reading of the work of Michèle Desbordes, which she had to share: “The one who was always linked to the Center region and the Loire had forged her work there” . And Michelle Devinant to quote The Regular, The Request or even The Small Lands which evoke, without naming them, “this Guadeloupean cliff or even this violence of the elements which suited it so much”.
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Combining her research work, her own writings and those of Michèle Desbordes, Michelle Devinant writes her story as an investigation. And lifts a veil on Michèle Desbordes, who left to flee an influence and follow a new love. An author whose heritage she claims today.
“Over there my love, the forgotten archipelago” from Regain de lecture/Corsaire éditions (16 euros). Michelle Devinant is signing, Saturday November 16 and Sunday November 17, at the Livres et vins en Terre de Loire fair, in Mareau-aux-Prés.
The Friends of Michèle Desbordes recently united
Katia Beaupetit
