But that did not stop the writer from tirelessly defending the language and culture that marked his childhood. A love such that once retired, this former professor of classics and Occitan at Confolens, began writing a thesis, before obtaining, in 2012, a doctorate, on “Occitan oral literature”. It was also his research work, carried out as part of his thesis, which gradually turned him on to the “nhòrla”, the little stories, the jokes, which made generations of people laugh and smile. children and adults.
“It’s a bit of a way for me to defend our intangible heritage. »
The editorial team advises you
Defend the Occitan language
“It’s a bit of a way for me to defend our intangible heritage,” confides the author, also president of the Friends of Old Confolens association. “But also to offer revenge to children who were bullied for speaking in Occitan, which very few teachers were able to value,” he adds.
Author of nearly 200 of these short stories, published regularly in the free periodical Est Charente, Jean-Louis Quériaud was able to draw a first “best-of” from them, although the anglicisms irritated him. If this first issue, published in 2019, is now “untraceable”, he has done it again, publishing a second volume. “But this time, it will be the last,” he says, even if he still enjoys “writing these little stories.”
Priests, teachers or postmen
We might as well warn you right away, although some stories can be heard very well by children, this will not be the case for all of them. “There are many stories involving a priest, a teacher or a postman, who were central figures in village life in the past,” he says with a smile. A polite way of explaining that some stories can seem a little saucy. These are stories, rumors, mishaps that happened to this or that person (or not), and that we took pleasure in telling each other in the evening by the fire to pass the time and relax.
And it is a bit of this spirit that the author is trying to revive, thanks to this work. Talking about a time that seems to have passed, but still anchoring it in the present, and through a language that only asks to find a little of its place once occupied, by allowing us to find ourselves together. And if this has to happen through little “gnorles” telling each other around a table, it’s because they say that laughter is a universal language.
Jean-Louis Quériaud will be at a signing session this Friday, December 20, at 6 p.m., at the Confolens media library. And on March 15, he organized a “limousin vigil” in Lesterps.
“Tales of evenings by the fire”, second volume written by Jean-Louis Quériaud. Published by Éditions Est Charente. Public price: €15.
Related News :