Writer, journalist and history buff, Marie-chantal Guilmin presented her latest book “It happened by chance” at the Le Trait d’Union media library, where she is also one of the members of the volunteer team in charge of the management of this place of culture. It was a very moving moment for the writer to find within the walls of the media library where she has worked for many years, her readers who are also her friends for the most part. Emotion also at the evocation of the horror, of the massacre perpetrated in Oradour-sur-Glane by the second Das Reich division on June 10, 1944.
Marie-Chantal Guilmin began writing her first novel “a bit for fun,” she says; “Women, lives, souls” was published in 2008. The second “Elsa Z” earned her the Zakhor medal of honor for the memory of the Shoah, which she received from the hands of the Israeli ambassador to France and the famous Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld. Since then, she has published several other novels and received many other literary awards. Her last distinction and not the least, at the end of 2023, Marie-Chantal Guilmin was made knight in the Order of Arts and Letters by the Minister of Culture Rima Abdul-Malak.
For the Saint-Amantais, she spoke of her latest novel published by Ramsay editions “It happened by chance”: the meeting of two adolescents, he is German, she French, and their love story in this martyred village. “The younger generations don’t know Oradour, they don’t read historical accounts,” she explained. “That’s why I wanted to write this novel, to make my contribution to memory. While watching videos about Oradour, I fell under the spell of Robert Hébras, the last survivor of the massacre, who died last year His greatest fear was oblivion. I contacted Agathe, his granddaughter, she read my manuscript, I wanted reality. facts are respected.”
Through this novel, Marie-Chantal Guilmin also makes her contribution to memory: the royalties are paid in full to Agathe Hébras for the restoration and preservation of the village. In a few weeks the 80th anniversary of these terrible events will be celebrated: the writer retraced their macabre unfolding in front of a shocked audience.
“It happened by chance” published by Editions Ramsay, is on sale in bookstores and online.
