« Safari », by Sabri Louatah, Flammarion/Versilio, 240 p., €21, limited edition €15.
Like a tear of ink on a blotter, a black spot spreads quickly on the surface of a retina. The eye becomes momentarily blind; the world finds itself absorbed by this sudden nocturnal rift. When the view returns, an element has disappeared from the decor. More precisely, a being is missing. A child.
This experience is that experienced by the narrator of SafariFrench writer living in Chicago with his American wife, Chelsea, and his 4-year-old son, Elliott. The scene opens the new novel by Sabri Louatah, author known for his tetralogy The Savages (Flammarion/Versilio, 2012-2016), adapted into a series for Canal+ (2019). It takes place in a tropical greenhouse, while a snowstorm sweeps through the city. The father, terrified by the sudden disappearance of his son, loses consciousness. But a strangely familiar voice brings him back to himself. It belongs to Gabriel, the young man who found the child. This voice astonishes the narrator: it is in every way similar to that of his father. However, the latter vanished without a trace twenty years earlier. The one who “devoted a significant part of his mental activity to not thinking about [son] father “ is upset.
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