INTERVIEW
"I am unable to write on a blank page," says writer and browser Yann Queffélec. The 1985 Goncourt Prize was on Europe 1, Sunday, in the program La Voix est livre, presented by Nicolas Carreau. And to cope with this problem, the author writes his stories on Chinese notebooks, the paper of which ... is not entirely white. Difficult to find in confinement, but the author of Les Nosses barbares managed to have the precious notebooks delivered. "I left them five or six days on the landing in case the virus had slipped into one of them. Finally, I opened them and everything is fine for me and for my notebooks."
"Women installed on the Amur river"
The writer, who begins his working day around 6 a.m. each day, finds that it takes longer to write because of current health conditions. But for him, whatever the context, the success of the time he allocates to writing depends greatly on the paper on which he writes.
>> Find all of Nicolas Carreau's programs in replay and podcast here
"First, these notebooks are not entirely white," recalls Yann Queffélec. "Then, the gliding of the pen is not quite like on French paper. I like that the surface of the paper on which I write is a little grainy. It holds my hand a little and the lapse of time between thought and writing may be where the pleasure of writing comes in. " Finally, these notebooks are made by "women installed along the Amur river" and the author "likes this image of these women in the process of tying up these notebooks with precision".
As for his stories? "Nothing on confinement or the coronavirus", he assures even if he recognizes that "it is impossible not to be influenced". "I opened a notebook of things seen and heard on the situation but I refuse to imagine people from what we live. I believe that this period needs to mature before being treated in literature", concludes -he.