It’s the story of a word of Native American origin that has found its way into all languages, Sylvain Prudhomme mischievously recounts. Coyote, a migrant word. And a trickster animal, similar to our fox in American mythologies. Today, it also refers to the smugglers of the famous wall built along the Mexican border, those who pluck the unfortunate “chickens” along the way, in search of a better life.
The writer admits to becoming a bit of a coyote himself by taking readers on a journey aboard his singular plural story, inspired by notes he took in 2019 during a report in the United States. Especially since, like a wild animal, Sylvain Prudhomme is always on the move. Slim silhouette, lively gestures and ultra-fast conversation. We catch him at his home, in Arles, in his half-bohemian, half-camping southern house, on the ground floor lined with huge piles of books that waver while waiting for their shelves.
Barely back from Israel, where a weekly sent him to cast his writer’s eye on the country at war, here he is leaving for his own wandering, not without having watched over, like an attentive father, his son’s preparations. cadet taking the school vacation train.
But don’t tell Sylvain Prudhomme that he is a travel writer, even of a breed apart, he who nevertheless navigates between reports and literary stories, nourishing one from the other and vice versa. The caricature of the adventurer in the footsteps of the rare beast or the lumberjack in his cabin, very little for him.
What matters to him above all is meeting others: “The reports are pretexts, I have no legitimacy as an expert
Senegal
