He was one of the most anticipated guests of the Rencontres Michel-Serres. Author of Their children after themGoncourt Prize 2018, Connemara published in 2022 and more recently from the epistolary collection The open sky published in 2024, we spoke with Nicolas Mathieu a few minutes before his appearance on the stage of the Ducourneau theater in Agen, on November 9 at 4 p.m.
You come from a modest background. You now frequent the French intellectual elite. Where is your place in all this?
Nicolas Mathieu: “That's a good question, I talk about it with my psychologist regularly (laughs). I'm no longer at all from the world I came from, and I will never be totally from the world I ended up in. every time I am in one or the other, I am tempted to play devil's advocate by bringing the voice of the middle classes to the elite, and to make the voice of the elites heard in the pavilions.”
Are we necessarily in conflict with ourselves when we defect from class?
NM: “There is an inner conflict that we cannot escape. Everyone has to deal with guilt and legacies that they do not know what to do with. Everyone is, to one degree or another, going through by antagonisms and competing desires For my part, I try to resolve all this through writing.
Would you say today that you are at peace with yourself?
N.M : “No. But I have this chance to be able to transpose my conflicts, my heartbreaks, to give them a form.”
You attended the eloquence competition on Friday evening. What did you think of these young people who, a bit like the characters in your books, have to fight to get into the big schools?
NM: “I am particularly sensitive to everything that can help produce equality in access to courses that lead the furthest. When you are born into a family that does not know the “codes”, when you do not does not know how to speak, how to behave, when one has not acquired a certain type of culture, there is a huge hurdle to overcome to access the cursus honorum of the Republic.”
This week in Agen there was a preview of the film adapted from your book “Their children after them”, directed by the Boukherma brothers (from Port-Sainte-Marie). Have you seen it?
N.M : “I saw it twice. I was very moved. There are Cape Canaveral moments, like the scene on July 14, when they sing “How I love you” and everyone looks at the sky We have the impression of seeing ourselves, and of seeing the whole country. [les frères Boukherma] have succeeded in linking a strong narrative arc and a chronic side where there is languor, where we feel the passing of time. The film begins with a talkative base and then it becomes more refined… Everything becomes more meaningful.”
