English translation of the French transcript, made with AI and not yet proofread — click a paragraph to jump to it. Show the French original
Presentation of the book: a marvelous subject, a genre overflowed 2:25 Thank you very much. I'm very honored to do this. I don't know if I'll be up to it. Yes, thank you. In any case, I'm very happy first of all to present – sorry, to start with the book, not with the author. But I'm sorry our marquis couldn't be with us. Because he's a great Africanist, joking aside. And he knows the Central African Republic particularly well, as you know.
3:01 He was actually there during the periods in question. I had overdetermined reasons to be, so to speak, swept away by the book. Because I'm at least doubly concerned because of my own African background. I'll remind you that another Dominique is also an old African hand. Ivorian, as far as I know.
3:31 And briefly Central African. There you go. And then with an Ajaccio mother, that really did it, not to mention our overseas traditions. An insular, overseas tradition, at a time when there wasn't tourism yet, you had to flee both poverty and vendettas, one or the other, or both. Either to Marseille, or when it was more serious, all the way to Saigon, or to Bangui.
4:03 There you go. I found the subject to be first of all incredible, with everything that entails of the marvelous, almost the miraculous, in the double sense of wonder and exception. It's quite an unusual story after all. And at the same time, that's for the subject, but the treatment Dominique gives it – I don't know, I'm a bit obsessive about questions of genre – I don't know if it reduces to the novel genre.
4:42 Of course, it fits in very well, but at the same time it overflows it. There's a multiple-biography side to it, the characters are very present, I mean, and yet it seems to be a story that now belongs to the past. So, there you go. Especially since Dominique already has, how should I put it? She shouldn't be sexy, she shouldn't be tough, what should I say? She shouldn't be Corsican. Well, in Corsica you can be all that, and it's not bad.
5:12 Yes, but I'll tell you. Sorry, sorry to the Corsicans, forgive me. No, I mean, she already has a temporal depth as an author. She has numerous publications, and quite a few, and I hold this dear, in the children's book category. Having myself gone to primary school in Africa, having had Africans as classmates, and as teachers, and then as students, you see, I'm very sensitive to the dimension of the marvelous, and the coloring of the marvelous that's involved both in the subject and in the treatment Dominique gives it.
5:53 There you go. I don't want – it's not my place to speak tonight, but it bothers me a lot to be taking Dominique's place. I came to hear her, this isn't going well. And so, I've already forgotten your first name, I told you I'm a bit of a mule on the edges. Béatrice. Béatrice, there you go. And maybe Béatrice also has something to say by way of introduction, as a preamble. I'm just Dominique's voice tonight, since she wants to preserve the writer's discretion, given a loss of voice.
Giving existence to the ordinary people of Ajaccio 6:31 I'm just making myself... What a slip! I'm just the loudspeaker. I don't want to summarize the subject, we agree on that. No, what – before Béatrice tells us, already, thank you for coming, for listening, for wanting to hear this story, and in any case for reading it, I hope. What interested me, beyond the fictional story of this brass band leaving an island, Corsica, to reach the Central African Republic, in '78, so that's already a different era, these are kids from the working-class neighborhoods of Ajaccio.
7:14 So, what was interesting for me, beyond this epic of the band crossing the island to reach that black continent, was also talking about, addressing, this common people of Ajaccio, this common people of the island, because often, well I found that often, the quintessential Corsican character in many novels is the thug, the bad kid, the bad guy, and these are ugly stories.
7:53 There you go. I could very well have done that, because I myself come from a fairly... fairly violent family, so I really could have, I had the ease, I really had the material for it, it would have been easy, it's family material, but what interested me was precisely to say that in Corsica there isn't only that, and that there are lots of people living stories, stories, particularly of these kids from working-class neighborhoods, because I myself come from a modest background, and what interested me was to talk about those kids, the sons of fishermen, the sons of shepherds, the girls from the Borgu neighborhood, there you go, those people, they have an existence, and what interested me was to, well, allow them to exist, they did exist, and they still exist, and I think it was worth talking about them, and putting them forward, that's what I can already say, and then I'd like Béatrice to read, and for us to talk, maybe I'll take advantage of the break, since you opened the evening,
9:04 the evening, on this social, sociological, above all human consideration – I'll remind you, for those who don't know, and those who were kind enough to come, and those who will watch this recording, since you're talking about the common people of Ajaccio, whom people practically never talk about. On the contrary, I who am of mixed background, meaning a father from Bastia, a mother from Ajaccio, I've always heard, on the contrary, the dichotomy: Bastia is serious, Italy is right across the water, people work, they're not as good-looking as in Ajaccio, but anyway, I'm talking imagery – in Ajaccio, people are good-looking, that's true, it's a kind of image, three-card-monte in the café with the buddies while the wife and kids starve at home, that's the imagery, I hope I'm not offending anyone, well, it's not that simple, and yes, it's true that in Ajaccio those who make themselves noticed like to show off, but there's all this common people who don't show off at all, and if I speak up again, it's to remind those who don't know that the last plague epidemic – yes, plague, I do mean plague –
10:15 that there was in France – no, no, I'm not talking about the Middle Ages, I'm not talking about the Great Plague that left only a third of our population afterward in Corsica, though it wasn't the only place affected at the time – I'm talking about 1946, in Ajaccio, there was the last epidemic, there were quite a few ships, with soldiers, from all over, colonial troops, etc., but as this showed, it was a time when there was no sewer system, latrine buckets were emptied in the courtyards, I don't mean to be voyeuristic, but I mean it's good not to forget this common people we never talk about, because I was struck in the book by an attentiveness to everything that was for them fabulously new in the trip to Bangui, which could only have come from that social background, of course, there you go, that's why – I'm not trying to, I'm glad you're confirming that I sensed that vibration, there you go, I knew Rue Fesch back in the day,
Reading of the incipit: Mathilde "on parade" 11:25 because that's one of the rare times I lived in Ajaccio, when I was very young, and it was a time when there was, it wasn't like now, there was still poverty, not misery, but poverty – yes, that's right, there was no misery, but poverty, exactly – so maybe it would be interesting now for Béatrice, do you want me to read without an introduction, like that, yes, it's really the main character, so we're going to start, it's the opening, there you go, that's where we'll begin, then we'll go on, so she comes from this common people, so we're going to understand that. As far back as I can remember, I've always thought of myself as being in the parade, with family, with my mother, my brother and my father, at school, with the teachers and the students, with the people from my Borgu neighborhood, and of course with everyone from the band. Being in the parade also means watching life on tiptoe, you have an unobstructed view of a whole lot of things, you're at the forward outpost
12:35 of the world, you can see the secret harmony between all these things and all these people parading across the Earth, for me it's great theater. The day my mother died, the parade was at its peak, the neighbor women made a scene like nothing else, my father was devastated, my brother wanted to go up to the hospital to smash everything, there was shouting on every side, and I was as if at the Empire – small note, that's the cinema in Ajaccio – at the moment when the red curtain parts and the film begins, as if separated from the stage, I watched them, attentive to the slightest word in Corsican, in Sardinian or in French, and to their slightest gesture. I loved my mother more than anything, and I loved her madly that day too, because for once she was the queen of the show, it was her, on the other side, who was leading the parade, she must have been damn pleased, Mom, to be throwing everything into chaos, she must have been having the time of her life, driving everyone crazy,
13:45 her death arrived with phenomenal force, as if suddenly a dam had just burst and swept everything away in its path, in a few hours everything was destroyed. That, truly, was the event of my life. Thank you. So there, that's the main character, since she's the one telling the story, that's our majorette, and as we can see, to talk again about this common people, the Rue Fesch neighborhood, the Bank neighborhood, was the neighborhood of fishermen and coral divers.
14:33 There's still a building standing that's really typical, with a particular architecture, and it was the neighborhood where the coral divers lived, and so she does say there's a mix of languages too, meaning people spoke Sardinian, because there was a large Sardinian immigration at the time, they spoke French, because we're French, and they also spoke Corsican, because obviously we're also Corsican, so all of that gets mixed together, and it's a sort of Tower of Babel, and we're going to find that Tower of Babel again in Africa.
Reading: Madame Casanova at the Salines tower 15:10 So, there you go, I... So for the second passage, we're not in Africa, we're in the Salines neighborhood. There you go, so here we're in a district, so we cross these neighborhoods, these working-class neighborhoods, first we're in the town center, this fishermen's quarter, and here, the passage Béatrice is going to read is a new neighborhood, meaning we're in the years around '78, I'd say, this is the near suburb of Ajaccio, the first tower blocks, the Salines tower, which still exists, the first big towers, and here it's a person who lives in the Salines tower, so it's a mother, the drum major is going to visit a mother who is the mother of one of the musicians, who will also be one of the important characters in the band.
16:03 Twelve days later, on the 6th floor of the Salines tower, where the Casanova family lives, François is bedridden. For a week now, high fevers and frequent vomiting have gotten the better of his health. The young man is pale, he has lost weight and struggles to walk, even just to go to the bathroom. He's a pitiful sight. He sleeps most of the time, and when the fever spells give him a moment's peace, he keeps repeating the same words.
16:38 "I want to leave." "Ohh." "I'm thirsty." Madame Casanova is beside herself. She curses all the saints and shouts in Sardinian for anyone to hear that these band people wanted to kill her son. That this music is a manifestation of the devil and that she hasn't even managed to remove the eye, so strong is the little one's. Three times. Three times the drops of oil fell and spread out in the water. Francesca kept yawning. Yawning.
17:08 She had never seen anything like it. Despite her incantations, she'd have to start over. That shows just how innuchjatu the boy is. Meaning he has the evil eye. Ange, her husband, left on the road this morning without even having his coffee with milk. The whole family is cursed. And God only knows what else awaits them. Maranin, who had made the trip to their home, past the Monoprix roundabout, took the bus and headed to the new town toward the north.
17:39 It wasn't with a light heart that he headed for these new neighborhoods, but Madame Casanova had to be silenced, as she was spreading nastiness and outlandish rumors that risked jeopardizing the band's trip. So he came in person to reassure her. Taking on a paternalistic tone, hands crossed over his big belly, he addressed her in Corsican. "Oh, Madame Casanova, calmatevi!" "Calm down, how! Have you seen him, the boy!"
18:09 "All you can see is his nose!" And as if to underline her disagreement, without even offering him a chair to sit down, she went on in French. "Your cursed band, that's all that matters! Oh, it'll be a fine trip if it starts at the foot of a dying man's bed! That's all you have on your mind, isn't it? The trip, the great trip! Africa! And why? Is anyone stopping you from marching here?" "But it's a reaction to the yellow fever vaccine, the doctor told you so. Listen to me, I promise you that in two days, well, let's say three, the boy will be back on his feet and blowing like a demon into his clarinet."
18:46 "That cursed instrument, I don't even want to hear it anymore! And this yellow fever among the Black people, don't you find that strange? How is that even possible, huh?" Maranine, left speechless, ignored the question. "But I'm telling you he'll be on his feet in two days." "And I'm telling you the boy is not leaving, clarinet or no clarinet." Suddenly François let out a plaintive groan that moved his mother and encouraged the drum major. "You see? I'm sure the fever is breaking."
19:17 "I'm going to go, Mama." "Porca miseria, there it is!" Madame Casanova exclaimed, her face tragic, hands raised to the sky. "That boy will be the death of me." "You know," Maranine murmured with a conspiratorial air, "this is a historic event and your François is invited. His clarinet will shine in the African sky, can you imagine?" "Lord Jesus, hà persu u capu! He's lost his mind." And without even saying goodbye, Madame Casanova walked him to the door, still muttering.
19:51 Between two Sardinian and Corsican curses, you could clearly hear her pronounce the word "Africa," as if she were trying to tame it, to make it familiar, because let's face it, she wouldn't have the heart to stop her François from going. In his family, it was a destiny. The men loved to leave. Her father had left Sardinia to come here, to be called "Mangialupini" – those who eat lupin beans, a sign of poverty in Sardinia as in Italy – and to slave away to support his family.
20:21 He had taken part in the widening of the roads, those same roads that his son-in-law's truck would travel a few years later. Today it was François's turn to leave, if only the Holy Virgin and God together would let him recover from this damned vaccine. Thank you. So this passage is important, I underlined it, it's important for several reasons.
The ritual of the eye and the emperor's invitation 20:53 Already because, well, François comes from Sardinian immigration, as we understood. So the Sardinians were first in neighborhoods outside the town, then more toward the center. And what's also important is this eye ritual. And it's a ritual that still exists. To tell you the truth, when my daughter, who's 22, isn't doing very well or has a little blues, she calls me and says, "Mom, can you call Grandma so she can do the eye for me?"
21:34 You see, it's still around, it's very deeply rooted. We're in '78, in 2020, it's still very much alive. There you go, Béatrice, I know. So what is this ritual, exactly? The eye – so it's the eye, the evil eye. Ah yes, yes, there you go. And so the ritual is prayers, there you go. But it's also literal, there are eyes involved, oculi. Exactly, with a water ritual in which you drop oil, and depending on the oil, depending on the shape the oil takes, the person has or doesn't have the eye, and the person yawns.
22:15 And what... She yawns because, if she yawns, it's a good sign, it means the demon is leaving through her mouth. So the evil goes away. Apparently. So what was interesting too, why I also talked about this ritual, is that we'll realize that in the end, in Africa, for them, Africa is something completely unusual, unprecedented, but ultimately they're going to be very close to the Africans and to African rituals.
22:48 Especially in the Central African Republic. We'll find this back-and-forth throughout the book. There you go, it's a back-and-forth that's going to be constant. And they themselves don't realize it, obviously, they imagine that they are... There you go, even though they're common people, they still imagine that they're white, that they're going among savages, they've never seen a Black person in their life. And you'll see later what's interesting and funny, is that often, the Black people who go to university have a very, very refined French.
23:27 They think they're discovering, in the end, the descendants of Victor Hugo. But the actual descendants of Victor Hugo are the descendants from the Salines neighborhoods, and they speak a very approximate mix in which they blend French, Sardinian... there's going to be a sort of unusual, surprising confrontation. And so, the drum major comes here because, for the time, you have to imagine, this was a completely historic trip. Yes, it's historic for kids to be invited by an emperor.
24:03 The imperial Caravelle is going to come get them. Meaning that Bokassa is going to send the Caravelle to come pick up these working-class kids. Which flew regularly to – parenthesis. Which flew regularly. So it's quite the event for the town and the island. It's quite something incredible that they're going to experience and that they're being allowed to experience. So the Caravelle, then everything that's going to happen in Africa, they're regarded as descendants of Napoleon.
24:41 Because obviously Bokassa was convinced he was some sort of reincarnation of Napoleon. He had a great love for Napoleon. And these kids, who feel absolutely nothing, well, who don't feel at all invested with a Napoleonic destiny. Not at all. Well, they're going to be regarded as the grandsons, the descendants of Napoleon. It's quite far-fetched.
Refined French of the Africans and the poverty of the Sardinians 25:12 So now, the next passage, well, I don't know since when you've been listening to me, well, I'm telling you. If you'd like to say something, afterward, all right, all right. May I interject? Yes. Same thing, it's for our friends. Of course. They're not aware of everything. I'll pick up on three things you just said. The excellent French spoken by some Africans.
25:43 The Sardinians, that doesn't seem to have any connection. And what comes through right from the passage in the tower, I mean, on the sixth floor. As for the Africans, I'm just telling a story and you'd have to be a fool to invent things about Africa – in Corsica too, reality is enough. But I'm in Burkina Faso, I have three days to spend there on a mission for Hachette, on schoolbooks.
26:15 I was designing them with the Burkinabe education specialists, or, well, anyway, I'm not here to tell my life story. And I go to UTA – there was still the UTA airline back then before Air France bought it all up – to confirm my ticket, to make sure I'd really leave for the next three days to Bamako and so on. And I said to the guy there, a rather elegant Burkinabe, I said, "Hey, Bakary, sorry, but you need... sorry, that means please, over there, in African French, you need to put the sticker on it properly, like in Nigeria, where you're told you're OK and then you actually get bumped off the flight.
26:55 "But, Mr. Pagani, there's no problem at all, we know you. Go back to your hotel, I'm giving an example, but should any mishap befall you, I won't fail to call you, I have your number." I said, "Sorry" – it was the first time I'd heard the verb "férir" [to befall] in a conjugated form. "But should any mishap befall you, I won't fail to call you back at your hotel." There you have it for... That's beautiful. So I imagine the little Ajaccio kid with his mix of Sardinian like Catherine Lundi. It's an extraordinary story. I couldn't make it up, it keeps inventing itself.
27:25 And Sardinians – I have a memory of my aunt saying, "I met a Sardinian, my aunt Doletta, an immigrant, or 'Tintacho' as we say back home. Poor little guy. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, like that, a bag with cheese in it to eat for a month. Old cheese. Can you imagine, being a Sardinian immigrant in Corsica, you see, it's a bit like the Spaniards in the 1930s who went to immigrate to Oran, in Algeria, you see.
27:56 for them, it was like America. There you go. To recall the poverty that also existed in certain layers of immigration in Corsica. And now I come to the most important thing, which is the way you make these characters speak and express their reactions, like the way, for example, they repeat the word "Africa" while walking the other person to the door. She brings that in as if it were nothing. But it was a subject that lent itself particularly well, it seems to me, not to caricature, but to comedy.
Reading: Mathilde sees herself as white; determination by opposition 28:30 And besides this, there are funny things in the work. But in a somewhat too narrow sense of the term. And you can feel love in every line. I was moved by that Corsican-French ["Hilfranco"] side of it. And it's a great achievement, it's the people from Gérédos. So, the next passage is about Mathilde, our heroine who lost her mother at the beginning, who is the majorette. So, they've already arrived in Africa, they've already experienced a lot of things.
29:04 And there's a love story with an African man. And the looks from her companions who tell her, "But you're white, he's black," and she's going to have a reflection about it. And that's the passage, the reflection she has. In fact, there are many passages in italics when Mathilde speaks, because it's really Mathilde's thinking.
29:34 "I never thought I was white. Do you think about the color of your stomach or your liver?" And then, frankly, surrounded by whiteness, it's hard to imagine anything other than white. For the first time in my life, I see myself as white. I see myself as white, but I can't believe it. I don't know what others think about it. I don't know if Antonelle has seen herself as white since we arrived. I haven't asked her the question.
30:06 Besides, I think she doesn't care. I don't think you see yourself as black before having seen white people either. Maybe I should manage to ask that prince the question. I hear the mosquitoes prowling and dancing in the hot air. I tell myself these tiny vampires make no distinction of skin. They allow themselves white as much as black, as long as they're gorged with blood and life. Do we see ourselves?
30:36 I put myself in Mathilde's place. Obviously, for once, I asked myself, do I feel white? Do I... Indeed, I ended up telling myself, being white, what is that? You can only call yourself white because there's another color facing you. Otherwise, this reflection on being white or being black, I think it's only possible if there's another color in contrast to ours.
31:07 Otherwise, what's white in us? What's black in us? Maybe Dominique, you who lived in Africa... We're in philosophy here. There you go, what's white, what's black in us? When you specify a determination, that's what it's called, white-black, it's always by opposition. It's always by opposition. That's clear. If you say, I guarantee you these are natural flowers, it's because artificial flowers exist. Exactly. Otherwise, there'd be no need to specify that it's natural. That's Mathilde's approach.
31:37 Sorry, we're throwing a stone into our own garden here, but it's ecological. So this is the approach Mathilde takes, who is also confronted with Africa, but unlike some of her companions, she has that desire islanders often have, a great curiosity about the outside world. Our Mathilde. How old is she roughly? Mathilde is 16. Right. And there, this great curiosity about the outside, Mathilde feels trapped on the island.
32:11 And that's something I myself felt as a child. I remember an anecdote. I had left home at age 10. I had taken a little bag. I put in two pens, a ruler, a decimeter ruler. Who knows why. What was I going to measure? I was going to measure the world. And I must have made it a few blocks. And then I told myself that my great journey was perhaps a bit...
32:41 But there you go, it's really... She has that curiosity of islanders who feel trapped on the island. And she wants to discover Africa. She arrives in Africa, this trip is unhoped-for. She wanted to reach Marseille, she wanted to join an aunt in Marseille, and this trip to Africa happens instead. For her, it's incredible, it's an extraordinary gift. So she arrives in Africa, she wants to taste African cuisine.
33:11 She wants to meet Africans, so much so that she'll fall in love with an African man. And indeed, this curiosity forces her to ask herself this question, but it's others who force her to ask the question about skin color. Her skin color. It's always others. There's also... it's not a novel, but it's a picture book I wrote for children, the story of a little mite whose home is going to be moved out of the carpet because the child is allergic, and the little girl tells her mother, no, but I want to keep the carpet, I like the carpet, etc.
Color, a social determinant more than a visual one 33:54 And the mother tells her, no, but you're allergic to mites. And she says, besides, what is a mite? And the mom takes out a picture of a mite and says, there, that's a mite. A mite is monstrous. And the mites look at the picture, there's the whole little family of mites looking at the picture, the mother, the father. They say, that's not at all what we look like. And the little one says to her mother, but no, you're the prettiest of the mite mothers. And there you go. And that's really that gaze, that gaze of the other.
34:25 And she, she's white because people look at her as white, but otherwise she never asked herself whether she was white. There was, I don't know if I can jump in, but in the United States they did little experiments like that with children, and you see two children who are two different colors. So what's the difference between you two? Oh, I don't like salad. She does, and they don't see it. But yes, all the differences are about the other. It's a different age group. They're about 8 years old.
34:55 They don't see it at all. But they're not numerous at all. Oh well yes, her, I don't know, well whatever. Pink sneakers. But everything, nothing. It's very striking. So that, I'm not lying, I'm very surprised. Me too, I have two children aged 4 and 7, and I've noticed several times when they tell me about friends from school or people who come into the classroom, they'll tell me everything about that person. Yes, that happens. But not the skin color. Because that doesn't... Right. And so the other time, they were arguing because their music teacher, who came to both their schools, they were convinced it wasn't the same person.
35:28 and all the details they gave obviously pointed to it being the same person. But at no point did they think to mention that in fact he was black. And I found out much later because my little one, he's 4, at one point told me, "Victor has a brown face." He says it just like that. And I asked his brother about it. I said, "Does your music teacher also have a brown face?" Yes. And I said, "So you see, it's the same person. Well, even that detail points to it. But they never...
35:59 Yes, it's very striking. Never. It doesn't count. It's really an adult thing. It's not just an adult thing. It's mostly because skin color—I'm speaking from experience since I'm the son of a colonial, and I'm practically from Abidjan—skin color, in a particular context, but obviously not the one we just mentioned, is a social determinant. The black man is poor, it's a different social milieu. When you're in the contexts you're describing, obviously this determination doesn't play, at least not for children.
36:37 When it's first and foremost, as in many places, including during the colonial period, but even beyond, or in other places where the question arises, I know from experience that the fact of being black or white will be taken into account because it evokes social distinctions that, from childhood, are culturally marked for the children themselves, tied to lifestyle, etc.
37:10 But it's true that apart from that, obviously, what I mean is, it's not only a matter of age. It's not a question of age. But it's still clear that for young children, it doesn't count. It's invisible. Naturally, it doesn't matter. But she, she's leaving childhood behind. Precisely, I'm thinking back to Mathilde's reflections, plural. Because it's a superb passage. There we have exactly the opposite.
37:41 That is, we just talked about what children don't see. Now, about the difference—not of race, that's not what interests me—but the difference of world, when the child is in contact with a world that isn't that of the parents, as was the case in your childhood or mine, what we suddenly learned from that difference. I remember being extremely reactionary, as children often are, even more than their parents. You see what I mean.
38:11 I said to the houseboy. We brought you schools, hospitals, above all me. I was 8 in the kitchen. I was much nicer. You say "the boy" for people who aren't used to it, it means the servant. Of course. And the good white man, including the average aid worker who arrives there, has servants. Of course. Africans. And it's Africans. You see what I mean? There's a social connotation, including for children. You're not going to be the only white person who doesn't provide jobs. There you go. Including for the children of aid workers or colonists or anyone, the social relationship is directly loaded with meaning.
38:51 No, but that one, his answer, that's what revealed my color to me. But my color in the social sense, as you'd put it well, Dominique. It's not a visual color. When I told him we brought you, like three apples, hospitals, schools. And since they're wonderful with children, he told me, "I saw the hospital construction site over there, I didn't see any white person working on it." He awakened my political conscience. If you want, I'm telling you, things like that are extraordinary. There you go. Among other things, what I owe to it is the perception of difference.
39:23 There's a second one, very quick, which is when I came back, I was in seventh grade in Togo, for example, depending on my father's postings, and I was in a nice air-conditioned apartment, and from my bay window I saw my classmates from that day studying their lessons by streetlight outside. To me that's extraordinary. They often ranked better than me in class. I saw, I was white. I could have, for once, there was a passage with the streetlights, but yes, yes.
Reading: the diamond mine and the troubled figure of Bokassa 39:58 I wanted to fit that in, sorry, but the streetlights are very important. But I thought about all that when I dropped them, that's why, somewhere, given the reactions of the Corsicans, of young Corsicans, that's it, I found some echoes there. So can you introduce the next passage, the diamonds? Just to set the scene. So, the famous, the diamonds, there, it's not, but it is still, it's not Giscard who's in the novel, he never appears at any point.
40:30 But on the other hand, Mathilde will be accompanied by Saint-Cyr, who is a son of Bokassa, to visit a diamond mine. There you go, a diamond mine. So Saint-Cyr obviously wants to impress the majorette and so invites her to visit, and so she visits this diamond mine and learns things about Bokassa's coronation. So I should clarify that in fact they were invited to Bokassa's coronation but couldn't make it because the mayor of Ajaccio was waiting for Raymond Barre, the prime minister at the time.
41:12 So the trip was postponed by a year. In any case, after that, it wouldn't have been possible anymore. They were invited for the first anniversary, so they were invited to the first anniversary of the coronation. After that, obviously, it would have been over, they wouldn't have been able to set foot in the Central African Republic again. So it's for the first anniversary of the coronation, and that's Mathilde's visit to the diamond mine. She had been told that last year's coronation had cost a year's worth of diamond extraction, and that Bokassa's crown alone was covered with 7,000 carats of diamonds.
41:53 That hadn't meant much to her at the time. What could a carat correspond to? It was rather the number 7,000 that had impressed her. Saint-Cyr had just told her that the carat was a unit of measure and purity. She had retorted that there was really nothing pure in what she could see at that moment in that mine. He hadn't picked up on Mathilde's insolence. White people allow themselves everything and always think they have values superior to black people's.
42:27 No matter how much we had French culture, we still didn't have its color, the color of the great avenues lined with plane trees, the illustrious museums, the clubs of civilized and obsequious men bound by consanguineous alliances. Her father had taught her that, and also how to mock it. He had also taught her the power of money. This passage is important. Tonight we were supposed to have a visit from Bokassa's grandson, but he was supposed to come see us.
43:02 well, he's not here, that's fine. What's important is that in this diamond story, the diamond in the Central African Republic is one of the purest diamonds in the world. It's really the diamond. But what interested me about this character too, is that he provides the contradiction to Saint-Cyr. He brings, at least he stirs up trouble in Mathilde's mind. It's not so obvious, so blatant.
43:34 There aren't the good white people on one side and on the other his father, the emperor, who's an odious figure who spent fortunes on his coronation, etc. There was something that interested me a lot. It's not, moreover, a damning testimony against the emperor. What interested me about this character too, even though he's not the main character of the brass band—though the brass band is still the main character—but with Bokassa, it's a man born of a father who was a resistance fighter.
44:10 His father died, he was killed by the French. He was defending forestry operations in Africa which were colonial forestry operations. His father fought for the land in the Central African Republic. He was killed by the French. His mother committed suicide a week after the father's death. And this boy, from whom France had ultimately taken everything, enlists in the French army, earns honors, is a soldier who was rewarded, who has an X medal.
44:50 He's going to fight in the war in Indochina. He was a ward of the nation, I believe. Yes, ward of the nation. It's still surprising, and throughout the novel I kept asking myself this question, but why did he do that? Why, when everything is taken from you... Well, logic would suggest he'd have a hatred of France, of the French, well no, he enlists in the French army, fights for France and...
A participant's testimony on Bangui under Bokassa 45:26 In Indochina. He's still quite a murky character. And that's the contradiction I also wanted to bring in through his son, to Mathilde, that things aren't so... Clear-cut. So clear-cut. It's not... There you go, obviously, there was that splendor of the coronation, that splendor of the first anniversary. I can add just one thing, because since I lived through that era—well, I didn't live there, but I made frequent visits—I wanted to just mention the fact that Bokassa was not at all perceived by his population as a dictator, for one thing.
46:05 Everyone, they made fun of him, they told all sorts of stories, as in pretty much every African country, among the common people. There wasn't... So it was an extremely authoritarian and police-state regime, but I just want to tell an anecdote to explain, to be wary of Eurocentrism, which had rather grotesque consequences, particularly regarding what the press reported at the time about the various events. So just this anecdote, which is that those who know Bangui and who know other countries and other parts of formerly French Africa know that Bangui had one characteristic, which is that it wasn't a violent place—it has become one, in parentheses, it's terrifying now, by the way, like other places.
46:54 At the time, it wasn't at all. But it was a place with a lot of petty crime in terms of theft and pickpocketing. It was really the city of pickpockets. Bangui was known for that. So you really had to be careful because you'd get robbed—it wasn't only in Bangui, but in Bangui it was really endemic, and it was Bangui's little plague. And it got to such proportions that one day, Bokassa decreed that, in line, by the way, with certain local traditions, that from then on, thieves caught in the act would have a hand cut off.
47:35 And that was applied at least once or twice. And what happened at that point is not... So there were obviously... You can imagine the comments in the French press, which is obviously perfectly understandable, but it happens that I was in Bangui at that time, and what was mostly commented on was the following: for at least six months, there were no more thefts or pickpocketing in Bangui at all. Well, it picked back up afterward. So, interpret that as you like, but Bokassa, who by the way lived in his palace—I don't remember what it was called—at a distance, where there was the landing strip for the Caravelle, and people talked about this landing strip and palace mainly because of the frequent visits of the great hunter of all sorts of game, who was Giscard d'Estaing, Giscard the African.
48:29 Because Giscard's trips were made in a totally covert and confidential manner, both to the French public and to the local public. But obviously, we heard about it since, well, the Caravelle's arrivals from France were mentioned. So all that to say that, given that—well, we've somewhat forgotten it now, but it was very present at the time, and when you saw it on the ground and then came back to Paris a few weeks later and heard what was being said, there was something quite staggering, at least in the perception held both by the colonial class, the whites, let's say, on the ground, and by Africans for various reasons tied to the whole bourgeoisie and even the general African population of the Central African Republic at the time, Bokassa was all the less perceived as a dictator and a tyrant, as an authoritarian leader, hardly more so, and he didn't particularly strike people by his authoritarian character, everything being relative, and in everyone's eyes he had an immense merit, which was that he didn't practice tribalism.
49:42 That was all the more appreciated given that the Central African Republic is one of the countries with a common vernacular language, which is not the case, for example, in Côte d'Ivoire or in all sorts of other countries, and where tribalism, in the Congo or wherever, is the basis of the social-political relationship, so to speak. So there, Bokassa didn't do that at all, and it was very much appreciated, and with hindsight, you can gauge that from the coups by the army, you can gauge what it turned into after his departure, and I'll conclude my little remarks by mentioning what actually happened, in real lived experience, with Bokassa's empire—well, the period when it became an empire—which is how it ended: one fine day, and I was there, so I can really testify to it, there was a permanent French base a certain distance away, also from Bangui, where the French legionnaires were, but there, a Transall plane landed right at the Bangui airport with the legionnaires who had come to depose Bokassa, and his replacement...
50:53 Bokassa's replacement, David Dacko, was in the cargo hold. You have to imagine, we were in the heart of Africa, in the Central African Republic, the relations one could have with that country, and imagine what the Central Africans themselves thought of it. But you have to do more than imagine it to grasp what's involved in principle. There you go, it's a bit worse than ever. But to reset the context, to say that, well, the event, even as the Corsicans experienced it, was in a certain measure experienced—of course it was a waste of state resources, etc.
51:29 Of course, you have to make all the objections that come immediately to mind, of course, and more than objections, of course. But you have to, not relativize, but understand the context, you have to keep that context in mind. And I'll conclude on that because there's also a very important phenomenon in the Central African Republic, which exists throughout Africa, it's really well-named, the Central African Republic—when you've been there, and I had many others at the time, both young and less young—it's really the land not so much of fetishes, because that's more Benin, well, the former Dahomey, but the land of ghosts, spirits, and animism, but to a degree you can hardly imagine, it's so present in everyday life.
52:16 There you go, I'll hand it back to you. No, no, it's very interesting because, precisely, Dominique, the Dominiques have lived it, there, the Central African Republic, which I haven't experienced, obviously, but the Central Africans, indeed, whom I've met, have this, have nostalgia for that period, the Bokassa period. Objectively, it was much more pleasant to live in Bangui and in the Central African Republic in Bokassa's time than today, I can tell you. There are people living there now.
The Central African Republic today and Corsican expatriation 52:46 Still, you can't go from one district of Bangui to another now without getting killed, I mean, over some faction. I had thought about it myself, and no, it's not possible, you can't set foot in the Central African Republic. But still, you saw the latest news, they're attacking the UN camps because they're being massacred and the UN soldiers don't move, the blue helmets don't move because they have no orders. It's a country where, in Bokassa's time, you could travel around freely. The only problem was the roads, which were very makeshift. Giscard also took the plane to go on his safaris, of course.
53:19 It's the country of safaris. But there are very few roads. But wherever you could travel, at least in the dry season, there was no danger in terms of risk. There were, by the way, a lot of cops blocking the roads. But it was mainly... There you go. It was like... to collect bribes, you risked nothing, physically. And there was a Corsican who ran, who ran the hunts. I think I know the name. There you go.
53:49 He is... Africa is big, but Corsica is small. This gentleman is still alive. I wanted to meet him. Unfortunately, he's very, very ill. Very old and very ill. He's still alive. He lives in Ajaccio. He's very old, very ill. I couldn't meet him. but I met people who were close to him. If I may, I have a suggestion. I'm sure you have works underway. Actually, there's still a book to be written.
54:19 There are several. But with the storytelling talent you have — and again, this isn't an empty compliment in this area — about Corsican expatriation, in the overseas territories in general and in Africa in particular. I'll just give one example. I'm in Niger, which is the opposite of the Central African Republic, of Ivory Coast. It's as dry as those countries are humid and wet. I go from Niamey to Agadez, 300 km, worth having the gist of the Central African Republic. There's nothing.
54:49 It's the desert, desert to the left, to the right. With sweaty t-shirts, there's dust in the car. Despite the air conditioning, it gets in everywhere. And suddenly, it's a mirage. I see a white man, on the side of the road, with his car, parked, a beautiful car, next to him, with his black butler. I'm not speaking in a politically correct way, you'd say — Africans aren't fools — who's standing there, arms crossed, in a white outfit, with a gold button on the side.
55:19 An unfolded table, a champagne bucket. I feel like the Duponts in the land of black gold. Yes, that's it, it's a mirage. I pull over. The guy is really there. Pagani! He calls me by my name. I recognize Léca. You don't know who that is, but Mr. Léca, he was somebody. He was the technical advisor to the first president of Niger. The one who founded the Francophonie, by the way, Hamani Diori. He was coming back, he was what, over 75, older even, everyone in Niger knew him, he was going to see his beloved Agadez, capital of the desert, and he was making stops with his champagne bucket.
55:59 It's extraordinary. He said to me, do you want a glass? I stood there thinking, well. There's a book to be written about Léca. I'll think about it. No, no, honestly, I'll mention a few to you. Later, later, I know. So, the next passage, we chose... I had also thought, maybe, before, if we could add another passage, if that's...
Reading: Professor Colombani and the tourists' cruel game 56:35 Well, make yourselves at home. '97? '97. A Corsican from Bangui. And it's a Corsican from Bangui, because I think it's important for the political context of Corsica too — it's the moment when nationalism is emerging. It was the beginning, yes. There you go. Afterwards, it's rearranged. So, there you go. So I'd like us to talk a bit about this passage, which seems important to me.
57:07 And it's very good, then, to move on to... to Prince. Professor Colombani, a Corsican from Bangui and a distant relative of Maranine, who had come with his R16 to offer them a tour of the city. He had taken charge of the drum major, the mayor, and Madame Santon. Gisèle Brancaleone had preferred to go back and rest, so much had the heat and the balcony episode worn on her nerves.
57:39 The professor had followed the wide streets and driven to the central square where a large fountain served as a roundabout. Facing it, they had passed under one of the four monumental arches built for Bokassa's coronation. On the frontispiece was inscribed a mix of Bokassa with their Pascal Paoli.
58:16 We'd better defend our Napoleon. Professor Colombani, who missed Corsica fiercely, was worried. They say the young people have all gone mad and want to set the island ablaze. Ah, that's true. They've become idiots. We won't let them do it, Colombani, I tell you. Word of Brancaleone. Who is it that gives out the jobs at city hall, huh? At these words, they had fallen silent. Apparently more or less convinced by the mayor's words.
58:48 They had then gone up a wide avenue lined with royal palms, followed the Oubangui river, crossed the working-class neighborhoods bordered by the M'Poko river, and reached the great café of Bangui where the professor had invited them for a drink. It was a real capital city café, furnished with a long exotic wood counter, formica tables, and refrigerated display cases where genuine French pastries were arranged. This was where, at aperitif time, all the expatriates and wealthy Banguians met up.
59:21 Madame Santon — he had left them there. She wanted to go shopping, and on this side of town there were all sorts of shops with big French brand names on the storefronts, as well as the national diamond counter. Her face had lit up. With a bit of luck, she'd find some unique shoes, a typical outfit to make a sensation at the next official evening, and why not a little diamond, or maybe a diamond chip, nothing much, she felt obliged to add, so as not to arouse suspicions — which were certainties for everyone else — about the source of her husband's income.
1:00:00 All three had watched her leave the table with that shameless look of men who sense in a woman infinite promises of pleasure. The deputy for culture had a striking presence and that false naivety of women who know they're desired. In her tight suit and her blouse with its cravat, she looked like Gina Lollobrigida in The Hills Run Red. At the great café, while Colombani ordered large glasses of soda, they had seen, a few meters away, the deputy leaning toward a young beggar and giving him a bill.
1:00:34 Maraninki had already noticed the young disabled man. It wasn't the first time he'd seen young men with cut and withered limbs. Since his arrival in Bangui, this had intrigued him. He had seen these kids near the market, in the village, near the university, and now in the middle of the city. Some had no hand or no foot, others bore large, poorly healed scars. Something told him it wasn't disease. But what then? Professor Colombani had then leaned toward him and explained that all this horror was the result of a game initiated by tourists.
1:01:08 Yes, he had heard correctly. The tourists threw silver coins into the river and the kids dove in to retrieve them, at the risk of being killed by crocodiles. At best, of being savagely mutilated. Earning a few CFA francs was vital for these children as well as their families, and any means to achieve it were fair game. Yes, it was a cruel game, but the foreigners loved it. If there was blood, it was even better. He could no longer tear his eyes from the carnage as the coins rained down on hot flesh.
1:01:44 Maranine's gaze had clouded over; he had grown angry. All sorts of Corsican insults burst out. So — let's translate, these are insults. Sons of bitches, the bastards, the murderers, may they all be cursed, done for. There you go. He's very angry because he's discovering — and it's true, it's true — this game that isn't fiction.
1:02:16 I'll add that the expatriate French colonial community and long-term settlers were probably the most pathetic, the most repugnant that I saw in all of Central and West Africa — and God knows I was almost everywhere — Bangui had the feel of a forsaken sub-prefecture. We were somewhat in the atmosphere of Tavernier's film. I'm glad you say Coup de torchon. Coup de torchon doesn't correspond to anything at all.
1:02:46 It's a fantasized image. But the one place where you could find something like that — that is, the atmosphere from before the war, even before the First World War, in Black Africa, among a good part of the French settler population — we were already in the era, post-independence, so neo-colonial, and this whole white petty bourgeoisie of Bangui was, personally, the most mediocre, the most repugnant, the most almost self-caricaturing that I saw in all of French colonial Africa.
1:03:22 I confirm it. Yes, there was, indeed, this kind of macabre game. Because the tourists — there weren't that many of them, mind you — the settlers on the spot played too, it was a sort of macabre game, and this type of game wasn't the only one, there were other games like that, and that's really not fiction. So let's maybe move on. So, this is the last passage, here's the last passage — I chose these passages to give you a bit of an idea of this journey of the band, from Corsica, from the working-class neighborhoods of Ajaccio, up to, well, these encounters with Africa, with Africans, with this political regime too, and a final passage — they went back to Corsica but for this last passage, I didn't choose Corsica, I chose a passage about an event that took place toward the end of Bokassa's Empire, and so, it's this moment when Bokassa gave the order
Reading: Prince saved during the shooting of the students 1:04:32 to shoot at the students, with live ammunition. So it's Prince, our hero, one of the main characters, our African hero, he's a student, he's passionate about literature, he's a literature student, and this is a passage where he wakes up to find himself at that moment in the crowd of students demonstrating, for bread, for... the cannons are aimed at the crowd, the order has just come down, everyone is looking for their victim, there will be enough for all, facing Prince, the weapon, the soldier's shoulder movement, the clenched jaw, the eye, the line of sight, the axis of the barrel.
1:05:15 Of all the possibilities available to it, the bullet chooses one, the chest. It releases all its force to reach it, it aims and spins, fixed in its trajectory, precise and fast, with a target in sight, this black and precious cloth, a promise of caress and infinity. The target is only a few millimeters away now. At last the bullet will be able to harvest the life and plunge into this fountain of youth. But suddenly, a golden gleam blinds it, and the projectile that thought it was about to meet flesh shatters against the precious metal and is deflected from its deadly course.
1:05:54 Under the shock, Prince collapsed. Around his neck still hangs Corsica. In his confused mind, he now hears the drums. Someone is coming to help him. His voice is weak, broken with French. He's rambling. Now he whispers. Mathilde. His eyes close as a long colorful procession invades his mind. The sound of the drums, again. They're the first ones. The drum major leading, in his bearskin hat.
1:06:27 Blue, red, white. The drumroll strikes his memory. They've come back. The grognards smile at him. Then the whole band comes to meet him. Suddenly, the heat overwhelms him. On his ebony temples, small drops of sweat slide down. It looks as if they're making their way toward the corner of his lips. The heat surrounds him as if he were inside a great golden circle from which a white angel would escape.
1:06:57 Rap-papam, rap-papam. The skull-headed drums invade his dreams. They advance, ever closer to his bed. A woman in a multicolored wrap interrupts them. She needs him, again. The man makes a few sounds that mean nothing to anyone. Only he sees them, only he hears them, only he goes back among them. Now it's the turn of the angel with the white kepi and red plume to step forward.
1:07:27 The formations cross paths and fill his heart with great happiness. Above him swirl flocks of improbable spotless batons. The angels amuse themselves filling the sky with them. They form a vault of luminous scepters covering his path. Prince smiles for a long time. Because suddenly, they're all reunited. The grognards, the majorettes, the drum major and his 53 musicians.
1:07:57 To the rhythm of Napoleonic marches, it accompanies him. His birthdays, today as yesterday, still a bit of that happy tune and the voice of Los Negritos Macembe. The procession has entered the room and it's making one hell of a racket. She is before him. They are children on the bank of a river. They're playing at love, they're young and beautiful. Made for that.
Art that saves; the music training center in Niamey 1:08:27 Thank you, Beatrice. Sorry, I forgot to say to you. Thank you, Beatrice. You could say, divinely. It must be said that your prose is a gift. The blond angel with the white kepi, you will have understood, is Mathilde, the majorette. What he wears around his neck, I won't tell you — it wouldn't be enough. You have to read the book. It's very funny. What's going to save him is Corsica. There you go, saved by Corsica.
1:08:58 And what was also important is the band. The band, in the end, is the music, it's the art that... that brings together all these people, that saves them. It's art that saves them. It's clear when you read it. There you go. And it's art that's going to save him. It's this music, it's his grognards. And I believe that art saves. And that's what I also wanted, in any case, to say and share with the reader. That, well, the reader, he has... He has a...
1:09:29 He performs an artistic act, in any case, by picking up a book and diving into another universe. That's already an artistic gesture. And I think that's what was important, that this band, ultimately, is a music, even if it's popular music. The band, which at the outset, is military music after all. Bands used to be on battlefields. So, in the carnage, they went... So it was the carnage.
1:09:59 But here, in the end, it saves them from the carnage. There you go. It saves them from the island, it saves them from confinement, and it saves them from their color. That's really it. It's art that unites them and saves them. I think what was important... It's magnificent, what we read. I was, if I may, echoing what you just said, all the more sensitive to it since, in recent years, south of the Sahara, I ran, thanks to your taxes, I thank you, because it was the European Union funding it, the music training center in Niamey, Niger, for ten years, in one of the poorest countries in the world.
1:10:35 It's even poorer than Mali, I don't know if you see. And then there were droughts, two-thirds of them. And I had... So, I dealt with bands, since I employed people, it was within the framework of development aid, so it was also meant to bring them something. It's not a simple conservatory, that didn't exist. Schools of life didn't exist. So needless to say, when an expat, almost as pathetic as those in the Central African Republic, said to me, 'and what do you sell?'
1:11:08 You don't say, what's your job, you don't say the schools. There were the... the good settled colonist, established, a property owner... And you, what do you sell? I would say, a bit used to it, to avoid the banks, I deal with music. Do they have music in that country? The guy had records at home, I don't know, Julio Iglesias. Well, fine. Meanwhile, the students were listening to Vanessa Paradis, back then, things like that. They're street kids, if they had a radio, they listened to whatever RFI gave them. We're not going to give them great musical culture, that's not going to work, no.
1:11:40 Development isn't meant for that. But, on the other hand, there are some... I would tell them, do whatever you want, but do it professionally. There you go, there's a Brazilian evening at the Sofitel tomorrow, so, do you know how to play the samba? No. See, you won't get the gig then — so that pushed them to work, to be like a piano-bar, to see all the styles. It's a piano bar, there's a little old lady who says, play me Ramona, and a young person who says, play me the latest hit. There you go, it's a profession. And there was one who, who knows why, was in rags, had never seen a piano in his life before arriving at the center.
1:12:14 It's symbolic, what there was to pay to enroll. And he had become smitten with the French Impressionists, Debussy, you'd have to understand it, it's extraordinary. And with tears in his eyes, he'd say to me, sir, do you have any more scores for his stuff, I love it too much. I was overwhelmed when I saw that music is hungry. It's music that saves everything. I was well placed to see it because my musicians, it turned out, brought in more money in Niger than many of the big agricultural projects that ended up in various people's pockets.
1:12:45 It seems the people can see its worth. I don't want to give too much away, but I was very touched to see that music holds this place because it's still a continent... I still have one last thing to add, to drive the point home, because we're at the heart of the matter. Often, the same thing, the expats would tell me you're being a bit culturally intrusive by bringing them all this music, it doesn't respect their culture. I'd say, do you have African music, you?
1:13:16 I say, yes, of course. So, you take their music, but you don't give them yours. That's a strange kind of cooperation. It's really extraordinary. Did you ask the Africans' opinion — it's really extraordinary. It's really true that this is the only region in the world where you're condemned to never step outside your own culture. It's strange for exchange. There, I wanted to say that because there's a collision happening in your book. All the time, there's a collision of worlds. And this collision really did take place, it really happened. In fact, I got hold of a film because this band was filmed, in the Central African Republic.
Collision of worlds: earth trumpets and coronation music 1:13:46 And there's a magnificent scene where the band meets some Africans, a tribe playing earth trumpets. These are the great trumpets that touch the ground. And they're there and they play together. And it's extraordinary. And there, the kids, they play together. There you go. There's no... They don't look at each other as strange. They don't look at it as if it were incongruous. They play together and it's extraordinary.
1:14:18 Obviously, we don't see it, but I try to describe it. All the more so in the Central African Republic, and this isn't unique to the Central African Republic, but I remember it because it was at the time of the coronation. I won't sing them to you, but on the radio, it was constant, because music is extremely present in daily life through the radio, particularly among Africans in general. Local popular music. They listen a lot to the radio. It gave rise to all sorts of things that sometimes spread beyond Africa, like makossa, things like that, from Cameroon and elsewhere.
1:14:51 But the coronation, what I remember from that time is that it was on the radio constantly, every 10 minutes. The music... There's an album you can buy, it sells for a lot. The coronation album that I had, Bokassa, Tegonda, Maudet, that, all day on the radio, with very good musicians. Local African music. There's no... Obviously, when you go into the heart of the country, and God knows the Central African Republic is really the Central African Republic.
1:15:23 There's traditional music, tied moreover to ritual and to the whole deep local culture, mainly animist, shamanic, etc., but in Bangui, which is the city, well, it's music everywhere, all the time, on the radio, and it's the local popular orchestras that set the rhythm, including for political life there. The essential political message goes through musicians appointed to write, as in the imperial era in France or elsewhere.
The preface and the hypothesis of colonial orality 1:15:59 It's the successor to the griot, the griot, yes. Yes, but it's moreover on the model of what we knew in France, where music is composed for the occasion, commissioned by those in power to mark this or that event. It's very, very present. Of course. So, there you go, what was interesting was that here, music isn't there in the midst of carnage, it's there to truly unite these two peoples. And I'm sorry François isn't here tonight because François had also brought up this...
1:16:31 He saw things, ultimately; we write, and then, often, it's those who read who take from it, who see things we didn't see, or that were unconscious. And François mentioned in the preface — the preface is magnificent, I love this preface, read the preface, because often, prefaces, we don't read them, we skip them, prefaces. But François's preface, really, it's a little jewel, and he talks in particular about languages and about this orality of the Corsicans and of Africa.
1:17:05 And this link — for me, I talk about music, and what joins language too is music, language. And he really points out very, very well this communion in these diverse languages that answer one another. It's very, very interesting, around these peoples who ultimately built themselves through orality. If I may — that touches me a lot, what you just said, because this preface... and God knows how much I generally appreciate François's style, like yours, but I bow to his pen.
1:17:38 François, a good aristocrat, often invests himself in minor genres — the pamphlet, that sort of thing, short pieces, a preface, an afterword, an article, that's it. But every time, it's a jewel, as you say. And precisely, the theme he develops there, we had discussed it at a conference organized in Corte, at the university, on "Corsica Colony." You see, the theme "Corsica Colony." That was in the years '97.
1:18:10 And we were invited, each of us had our talk to give. And he did his on the figure of the Corsican — you heard him earlier — in colonial fiction. The Jean Hougrons and the like, where the Corsican is always the bad boy who runs some shady hotel in Saigon, a brothel, that's it, and who's always in the company of a Maltese or a Levantine, as they used to say in the literature of the time. And I did mine on — we're getting there — colonial orality.
1:18:41 That's how I'd titled it, because I was wary — Corte is a somewhat mined field. So, to avoid offending anyone, I chose a very technical subject, like that: why have Corsicans done so well in the colonies? I said, one hypothesis, worth as much as another, is that orality holds an importance among us Corsicans. I mean, our aunts would make versified, rhythmic replies, and so on. And it hasn't been so long since it's been written, and even when it was written — the newspapers of the 1930s — it was in Italian, in Tuscan.
1:19:14 And so, I say, in the continent of orality that is black Africa, a Corsican on a work site was immediately in phase, he had the mentality of orality, of the word given — documents, papers, that wasn't so important. What mattered was what Monsieur Antoine, Monsieur Dominique, and so on had said. Hence the fidelity, all the same. So it touches me a lot that this struck you in his preface, this side of orality. Because it's auricular too. And there, it's true that I hadn't, at least, conceived it consciously.
A missing literature of the Corsican people 1:19:46 And this preface — no, but read the preface. Read the novel, but read the preface. Read everything. But the preface too. It's funny that you say you didn't conceive it consciously, because when we read you, it's clear that you tried to transcribe it. And as for me, well, I don't know the whole colonial and Central African aspect, etc. What touches me a great deal is that you give a voice, precisely — a voice — to the people. And when we write about Corsicans, that's never what gets presented. First, when people write about Corsica, they'll either talk about Napoleon, or about banditry, or about nationalism.
1:20:21 Touchiness. Exactly. They're even presented as taciturn. And in fact, there isn't — I could be wrong — but there doesn't seem to be, in the French language, a literature that speaks of the Corsican people, of what people are like, how people talk, how people live, outside of the clichés about Corsica. There's nothing equivalent to what you can find, for instance, in Italian literature or even Sardinian literature. Yes. Where you'll have — where this Sardinian or Italian popular culture is represented.
1:20:52 Whether it's, recently, with Elena Ferrante, but even with Lampedusa, or simply in comedy — Camilleri, or in the comedy of misfits. There's no equivalent. You hear people talking, you see what they eat, you see the people living with their customs, their habits, their traditions — well, there's no equivalent for Corsica. I don't know why. I think it's partly because it is indeed an oral culture. And so you'll find that, but in works written in the Corsican language, whereas in French, we don't have it.
1:21:26 That, regarding Corsica — Corsica, and it comes from backgrounds where indeed people adhere to superstitions, express themselves in a certain way, which aren't bourgeois circles, which are working-class, popular circles. I don't find them in literature, those circles. Or when I do find them, it's through the lens of banditry, and that's it. Whereas here, they're presented as they really are, with a lot of benevolence, with tenderness, with sympathy, with humor. And that, I've never read in French.
1:21:56 But you put better what I had cited earlier. That's when I said there's love in this book. Somehow, we see — it's an extremely concrete book. If I want to make a comparison — I know we're not supposed to... well, when a painter friend starts a painting, I always have the misfortune of telling him it reminds me a bit of Outre — but honestly, I thought of what I prefer in Colette. It's concrete like in Colette. In Colette, I don't know, the marble, a bedside table a bit chipped like that, it's a richness.
1:22:29 Who knows why, it brings tears to your eyes. So, it's concrete. That's it. But I found that again in this book. Thank you. I think that somewhat counterpoints what you just said, if I may speak about the Corsican literature that may or may not exist. Well, I think there's maybe no literature that expresses peasant, rural reality, etc.
1:22:59 There is, though, not literature in the novelistic sense, but there is a Corsican writing tradition that recounts daily life within oral traditions, to take up what you said. We have the tradition of the lamentu, well, the lamentu. Oh yes, of course, absolutely. That's it. We've known it. And that's the peasant, everyday reality. Yes, yes. Exactly. And it connects to this orality. So maybe... But it's not fiction. It's not part of a novelistic undertaking. And above all, the problem with this oral culture is that if it isn't at some point integrated into a literature — and I add, a literature that isn't only in the Corsican language, a literature that can be read by people other than those who speak Corsican, who aren't even very numerous — it will be lost.
1:23:48 It will only appear in history books at some point. And why don't we have the Elena Ferrante of Corsica? We don't have the equivalent yet. I think one day it will come. Maybe because... well, I think that for historical reasons, this diffusion of popular Corsican culture was held back. Also because it was confined to something so picturesque that ultimately it isn't disseminated.
1:24:20 And then, it's an oral culture that resists writing. And when it does write, it writes in Corsican. So, you need someone bilingual, I think, to do this... Just like you. Don't you think we're a bit crushed by the Napoleonic myth? Oh yes, I think that's part of it. Yes, absolutely. Any emergence of something. Of other things. We were talking about music, precisely — because the caporals, that's Napoleon. Yes, there's that, on one hand, I think, which crushes things, the Napoleonic myth.
1:24:50 And I'm convinced that, in fact, nationalism, with the way it put forward certain supposed aspects of Corsican culture, wiped out other aspects of Corsican culture. That is to say, for example, Corsican polyphony — also because it appeals to tourists, etc. — completely masks the fact that there's another Corsican musical tradition that nobody listens to anymore. It's a crushing hero. So, yes, we have on one hand the Napoleonic myth and on the other a kind of nationalism too, which means that, in the end, there's a whole Corsican culture that no longer has a voice, that isn't written down.
1:25:28 And that isn't written. I'm very glad you said that. I'll just validate this, for instance, Ferrari, who may not be rural Corsica, but who is still Corsica... Yes, absolutely. ...popular, not bourgeois, with part of the people expressing itself. Yes, there's Ferrari, but it's... I'm not entirely convinced — Ferrari talks about a modern Corsica, he doesn't talk about a kind of fantasized Corsica. Yes, but not very working-class. Oh, I'm sorry, but also, in Ferrari, there are people who really aren't necessarily...
1:25:59 well, of fairly modest backgrounds, or... Yes, that's true, there's Ferrari, but well, he's... Ferrari is really modern Corsica, it's not the fantasized Corsica, there are several instances. Yes, yes, that's true. I find, I don't remember, Monsieur Apu, no, it's not Loucaré, what's his name? There's another one who wrote... Bianca, who wrote... Bianca, who wrote... thanks. And I don't know at all, I don't know... And so I find it a bit unfair, what you're saying. No, but it's true, it's true... I think there's a misunderstanding. I don't think anyone said... I don't believe you said that there's no Corsican literature, and even excellent Corsican literature.
1:26:31 No, especially those authors, we agree on that. He doesn't talk about the bourgeoisie and the Parisians. Yes, but even so — I love Ferrari, and God knows the density and intensity of his writing. But I don't find that concrete, everyday side — I don't dare compare it — that there is in La Fanfare, in Le Voyage de la fanfare, for example. We're right there, on what Paoli's customs were, what the people's relations with the clergy were, what the mineral resources were — we've never seen the industrial resources addressed, in Cap Corse, in that site.
1:27:05 It's an extraordinary document. There are four letters and he ends — I'll finish on this because it's not widely known — he ends by saying: listen, let's forget the constitutional project. It's too late, I'm tired, thank you, it's a great honor. Let me come and die among you. We nearly had Rousseau's tomb in Corsica. I won't bother you, I've always followed my needs, my companion too. I'm not Bernard-Henri Lévy, I'm not like that. I don't want to be the advisor of princes.
1:27:36 No, no, no, no, I don't want to be a Voltaire at Frederick's court. I want to be in a small parish and be forgotten. He learned the word while working on his files. And there it is, but I want to live free on a free land. It's extraordinary. And that, I don't find that in Corsican literature today. There it is. I'd like to hear the bookseller's opinion. The bookseller's opinion, on the subject, in particular, of authors who've had — especially Ferrari — a bit of an audience, of readership, of sales in bookshops.
1:28:07 In France, whereas Biancarelli, whom I know a little too, is for me an author who speaks to us about Corsica and from a Corsican point of view, Ferrari is seen and perceived and read as an author of Parisian high society. There's not much — the Corsican aspect isn't even anecdotal as far as the readership perceives it, etc. It's not even his subject, actually. Not at all. Biancarelli, for his part, hasn't had at all the same readership for his books, even though, in my opinion, he's rather better than Ferrari.
The Sardinian foreigner and identity that changes according to place 1:28:46 But that's an entirely subjective and personal point of view. Even when he writes, supposedly, in Corsican, and has himself translated into French by Ferrari. Well, that's your Corsican business, but... He's cautious, he's cautious. Yes, but we're still far from Colomba with Biancarelli. Yet it's a subject that brings us back to it. The theme is the same. We're no longer in folklore either. But we're still, we still remain within received ideas.
1:29:18 The image of the Corsican that you mentioned — we don't really talk about the people you're talking about, and we don't really talk about Corsicans in general. Because it seems to me... And about the Corsican people, no, that, in reality, isn't really addressed, because what I felt, what I sensed, is that there's a reluctance, I believe, to talk about those people. I think there's a reluctance to talk about the common Corsican people, as if it weren't worthy of the grandeur of literature.
1:29:51 Do you see what I mean? I talk about it because I come from those modest backgrounds. And so, I... It interests me. It interests me and... So, one can talk about those circles even without having lived in them, but I mean, I have a connivance with those circles. I'm the daughter of a shepherd. My father was a shepherd, my grandfather was a shepherd. Those are things... That's it, it's those common people, they're mine. So inevitably, I have an affinity, I have a love.
1:30:27 Well, it's... That's it, it's ritual, the water, you see. For me, it's not something absurd, it's not something... It goes without saying. It's something that... And I think it also needs to be passed on. You see? But what's wonderful is that... I have no shame at all in saying it. I think it's interesting. What's wonderful is that you don't pass it on as folklore. Exactly, no. It's integrated into the narrative, it's not... I still want to make it a work of literature. I still want to make... And strangeness is more... well, what I think I understand, is rather this conflict that the islander lives.
1:30:59 It's in that sense that... You want to speak. Who is the foreigner of the time. Me, me, I was there... Right. Who is the foreigner, yes. The foreigner is the Sardinian. The Sardinian is the foreigner of the time. The Sardinian arrives in Corsica, that's it, he's the one who eats lupin leaves. It's really... The Italians, the Italians... I Lucchesi. The people from Lucca, you know. The people from Lucca, but because that also referred to the wartime period.
1:31:31 So, the Italians were allies of Germany. It was the occupier. Yes, they were the occupiers. So all those people, yes, it's really... It's the foreigner, for the time, it's the foreigner in Corsica. And... And up until not long ago, Sardinians were called "Sardacci, Sardacci." Very derogatory. The derogatory one, so the derogatory term. I Lucchesi. So, the Italians. I Lucchesi, that derogatory term is heard, it's the "dirty Italian."
1:32:02 Like a German, like "Polaks." The dirty Italian, that's it. And there, when they arrive in Africa, their place changes, and so their social standing changes... In Africa, they become, I'd say, true Corsicans and true Frenchmen, whereas they weren't at the heart of the island. Well, there you go. But that's what I had tried to develop in Corte. I said, never was the Corsican more Corsican than when he defended the blue-white-red flag in Tonkin. That's it. It's an extraordinary paradox. It's a paradox. He was more French than all the others.
1:32:33 Or a civil servant of the colonial administration. But that's what I can say. But that's exactly it. From my personal experience, it was maybe close to half of the civil servants of the administration. A bit scandalized by the shambles of the private sector, by the corruption. Careful, that's interesting. He's a civil servant, one of Corsica's incorruptibles. My mother used to say, when I think I pushed the only Corsican who's incorruptible and who doesn't even play cards. Yes, exactly. It's interesting, this identity that changes depending on the place, depending on the territories, depending on the...
1:33:07 Exactly. Whether one is on the island or outside the island. It's really very significant for these kids who are Sardinian, sons of fishermen, sons of... Who are nobodies for the people. What was called "the people," that is, the lords, those who lived downtown, in the fine buildings, the fine apartments. That's it. They were nobodies. And there, in fact, they gain access to an identity that is both Corsican and French.
1:33:39 Not so long ago, in Bastia, I know Place Saint-Nicolas better than Plaça del Diamant. Well, I've seen both, but more regularly the former. Our friend Clouscard, whom François Negroni knew well, who used to run... who loved coming to Corsica, told me that in Bastia, where there wasn't at Saint-Nicolas — he pointed out to me that there was the sociology of those who follow what he called the avenue of desires, the promenade under the plane trees that runs along the cafés, and those who are on the square, there, back then it was a bit less so now, but back then it was only people from the citadel, it was another world, it was the edge.
1:34:17 It was another world. There was no... It was like two immiscible liquids. That's it, boundaries. Even though there was no barrier. Same square, but boundaries. That's it. They were called the little ones from the citadel. That's one that today has become the neighborhood. Yes, I say to myself. That's clear. We should maybe wrap up on the book. We're not going to do the whole history of Corsica and...
Conclusion: the publisher, the bookshop, and Nietzsche's saying 1:34:47 No. Including overseas and elsewhere. So over to you for the conclusion. The conclusion. Aside from that, of course, read the book. Yes, read the book. Thank you. It's a marvel. There you go, Dominique. No, what's... I think it's precisely a way of... of getting acquainted with this common people who aren't...
1:35:20 who are very little represented. Excuse me, I had to take a lozenge because I'm coming down with something... Is there anything better? There you go, it's maybe... It's maybe a way of getting acquainted precisely with this common people that we rarely see. And I'd like to end with a tribute to the publisher, all the same. Yes. Because they've published quite a few... including... She's... the publisher, well, Materia Scritta, let's say, has also published other...
1:35:52 other contemporary Corsican authors who also tell us about this. Yes. We had Gérard Lénie here, who speaks very well about it. Yes. And... every time, we're very, very far from folklore or from Parisian high society or literary snobbishness. It produces very, very good books that we ourselves, as Parisian booksellers, enjoy selling and recommending to readers.
1:36:23 And... and that's work which I'm afraid Materia Scritta may be somewhat alone in accomplishing. But it must therefore be encouraged. So the publisher, the editors and the publishing house, who do very, very fine work indeed, including the quality of the production of the books. I second that. Yes. But the publisher who is among us, by the way. Yes. I thank her. And it's true she does exceptional work, and François too.
1:36:55 And I was very afraid, in fact, that the publisher... Well, I submitted my manuscript, and he called me and said, I lived through, I discovered as a journalist, the coronation of Bokassa. And there, I thought, uh-oh, that's very bad for me. So that's it, it's over, he'll never accept the manuscript. I said, that's just my luck. I run into the one guy... one of the rare people who must have covered that. There can't be many of them who happen to be publishers too.
1:37:28 And he called me and said, finally, finally someone who talks about it, and it's lived, it's genuine experience. Who talks about Bokassa, who liked it — not just the caricature of the cannibal. Yes, he's forced to... that's it. You didn't do... And there, I was truly delighted. And it's true they trusted me, and I thank them very much, and I thank you too for doing this work. Here, it's in a way the Corsican consular bookshop in Paris.
1:38:02 So, there you go, come, come to Tropiques, to the Librairie Tropiques bookshop. And not just Corsicans. No. But you do a real bookseller's work, that is, truly one of reading and research, and not just showing what's in the spotlight, but also people who work hard. It's not entirely by chance that the Corsican consular bookshop is called Tropiques, because Nietzsche was in Nice. He had his rhythm — not a bad idea — winter, winter in Nice, in Turin, etc.
1:38:34 And then, summer at 3000 meters altitude in Switzerland. And he says, he writes to Peter Gast that they should go to Corsica. It's already complicated to get there at the time. Letter to Peter Gast, I think I already told this story. And he's his musical correspondent. Because according to my calculations, Nietzsche is a bit of a fool, we've made him into a great debunker, but sometimes he's a fool. According to my calculations, oh yes, we should go to Corte. Because according to my calculations, that's where Napoleon was conceived. There you go.
1:39:05 The sperm of the Bonapartes, that worked on the mind of this German. And yet, he says something admirable, because he said my genius is in my nostrils, I sense that between Nice and Corsica the African sphere begins. Oh, what a beautiful closing line! For your book, honestly. What a beautiful closing line. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. We'll perhaps conclude on that. Bravo. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you.
