“The fires in Los Angeles are like a whiplash, a basic test during which we must say what we really value”

DEntire sections of Los Angeles continue to burn as I write these words. A week ago, Tuesday, January 7, we evacuated our home in Mandeville Canyon. Friends sent us messages or called us to offer accommodation. My wife and I have temporarily moved in with our daughter, who lives a few kilometers from us, in a part of the city spared by the fire.

This is not the first time that we have been evacuated due to a fire, and we only took very few things with us, a change of clothes, a few books, our computers. The last time, we returned the next day.

The Mandeville Canyon neighborhood is close to Pacific Palisades. It’s there, in “Palisades,” as the neighborhood is called, that we do our shopping and wash our car. This is where we go to the cinema. This is where our children played sports when they were young. For July 4 [« jour de l’indépendance », la fête nationale américaine]there are spectacular fireworks and a famous parade. Before, we watched our son parade. Suffice to say that we feel at home there.

It is also a place of great beauty, surrounded by magnificent green hills which plunge into the Pacific Ocean. These hills are dotted with sumptuous villas of stars, such as Tom Hanks or Steven Spielberg. And the neighborhood has no shortage of history. It is here that Henry Miller [1891-1980] lived. That American writers Thomas Mann [1875-1955] and Lion Feuchtwanger [1884-1958] packed their bags after fleeing Europe during the Second World War. The German consulate converted Thomas Mann’s house into a cultural center; I myself participated in a program at the center a few weeks ago.

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