- The series Les Cahiers d'Esther depicts the daily life of a Parisian schoolgirl.
- Riad Sattouf brings back the anecdotes - real - that a real teenager tells him every week.
- Very popular, the series already has more than 500,000 copies of the first four volumes sold.
Five years after having started collecting and then telling in comics the slices of life of the daughter of a couple of friends, the comic book author / director Riad Sattouf confirms his regularity by publishing the fifth volume of the series Les Cahiers of Esther . In a tone still as fun, this volume, in which Esther celebrates her 14th birthday, marks the halfway point of a planned editorial experience, from its inception, over ten years. The opportunity to make a "half-time review" with its creator, who shares his enthusiasm - intact - with the readers of 20 Minutes .
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But but but would it be the real Esther receiving her album in preview when it comes out on June 11? ❤️ (thank you @allaryeditions & @ agathe.the.book 😜) #lescahiersdesther # lescahiersdesther5 #ilsarrivent # ilssontlà #vivredi #livre #livrestagram #book #bandedessinee #amour #lectrice #lecteur #lecture #bookstagram #oueche
A post shared by Riad Sattouf (@riadsattouf) on Jun 5, 2020 at 9:04 am PDT
In five years, hasn't your collaboration with Esther become routine?
Routine, no; but regular, yes. In any case, our exchanges are not a ritual! I never ask him, "Okay, what are we going to find this week?" In fact, when I call her or we exchange messages, she usually tells me, very spontaneously, three or four anecdotes from which I know right away that I can get something out of them. The real Esther may have become a little less talkative today than when she was younger, but even the teenage "softness" in which she finds herself today makes her laugh, so it remains positive.
How can her secrets keep their naturalness now that she knows they will become successful comics?
That is a very interesting question because when I started this project, what I liked very much was that she didn't care what I was going to do with her stories. She was like a penguin who hits the camera lens of an animal documentary maker on the ice (laughs). But over time, the series has indeed become very popular and has even reached a readership for which it was not originally intended since Les Cahiers d'Esther are first pre-published each week in LObs magazine . Little by little, it has happened several times that the real Esther is offered copies of Esther's Notebooks without knowing that she was "the heroine". So, it's true that she started to hallucinate a little (laughs).
To the point of "taking the big head"?
Not at all ! But to be a little confused, certainly. For example, I know there is an anecdote that marked her enough: one day, she told me about her passion for the singer Angèle. So I made a story around her love for this artist that Angela read and which she published a box on her own Instagram account.
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Ultimate consecration 🔥 thank you @riadsattouf and thank you Esther (finally pseudo Esther) ♥ ️ @ elvis.romeo we can die in peace
A post shared by Angèle (@angele_vl) on Jan 26, 2019 at 9:20 am PST
There, the real Esther did not return! She has, I believe, truly become aware of her "status". To the point that I think I will now have to stage a certain influence of success on her own life, on the way she will live it. But you should still know that I voluntarily remove the adventures of his paper alter ego from his life, that I preserve it by ensuring, for example, that his own friends cannot recognize it by reading the series. In any case, I do not think that all that makes its confidences less natural, far from it.
Precisely, are you not afraid that this status could influence his personal development?
I don't think so, because as I said earlier: the paper Esther is not really the real Esther… who sometimes regrets it, who tells me that she “would like me to draw her more as she is”. The fact that the comic strip is relatively far from its real life detaches it a little from the project, and that preserves it. She is a very balanced young girl, who does very well in college and is happy. Afterwards, she is obviously flattered that some of her friends are fans of the series, or appreciate her animated adaptation. And the fact that Angela expressed her admiration certainly turned her head a little, but it quickly fell.
By the way, how did Esther experience the recent health crisis?
So she, she was, like millions of schoolchildren, extremely happy when President Macron announced the closure of schools (laughs). Then, she found herself confined to Paris with her parents and she found it a little "relou" because she wanted very much to go out, to see her friends, especially since she knew that young people were less affected by Covid-19. So confinement quickly got her drunk, but she lived it relatively well. To the point that now she is a little afraid to go out again! Finally, all this will obviously be discussed in volume 6 of Esther's Notebooks , next year.
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😮😐😯😶 #lescahiersdesther #deconfinement #dimanche #dimanchesoir #oueche
A post shared by Riad Sattouf (@riadsattouf) on May 10, 2020 at 10:28 am PDT
During your interviews, we imagine that what she tells you is not systematically "interesting". Yes ?
No it's true. For example, she often talks about the subject of feelings, she tells me stories about boys that I rarely transform into comics because if I did, the albums would be full of boards and the boys and I confess that it’s not really what I want to do (laughs).
Do you sort?
Absolutely; and I even regularly launch certain subjects which I imagine that she does not know much because even ignorance pleases me. For example, when I told her about Greta Thunberg, she first thought she was a candidate for The Voice. Told like that, it can make you smile but for me, it makes sense, it says something about our society… It means that we sometimes hear things but that we don't know where to put them away, that explains a little chaotic construction of a political opinion in adolescence ... although I am sure that some adults know as little as Esther. In any case, it's funny to observe and then put forward in my stories.
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❤️ and edited by @allaryeditions course #lescahiersdesther # lescahiersdesther5 # 11Jun #dimanche #dimanchesoir #livre #read #reader #readers #bandedessinee #livres #livrestagram #bookstagram #coverage #cover #dessin #illustration #amour #sun # soleil # soleil # rain #tempete #bretagne #Paris #oueche
A post shared by Riad Sattouf (@riadsattouf) on May 24, 2020 at 9:28 am PDT
Is the language that you reproduce really the one that Esther uses?
But yes ! Besides - it's funny! -, I recently met, for another media, two adolescent girls fans of Esther's Notebooks and they told me that they recognize themselves in the coarseness of Esther's language. They even ended up admitting to me that they were embarrassed that the adults who read the series know that they express themselves like that between them. In any case, they found that the comic strip was very realistic in that it told the life and the relationships of Parisian teenagers today. It makes me happy, because I never drew Esther hoping to represent an entire generation but it is clear that many young girls her age are found in her.
We feel that Esther inspires you a lot of tenderness, right?
It is true that our relationship is almost “family” because as I know her parents well, I have become a bit of a friend to whom she easily tells things about teens. I also believe that it is also, for her, a way of distinguishing herself, of getting out of the crowd by confiding in me the facts that she observed and that the others did not necessarily notice.
What does this long-term experience bring to the artist - and to the man - that you are?
I am an absolute lover of Joseph Kessel, who traveled to distant and unknown lands and brought back striking reports. But the world today is too well known, it has shrunk, the only areas that remain unknown are perhaps these chasms that separate the generations. Since time immemorial, adults and adolescents have struggled to understand each other and spend their time trying to tame each other. So what this experience brings me is the pleasure of discovery! I want to know how a young person of today imagines his future, is he afraid, is he excited, confident… and the direct relation which binds us, Esther and me, feeds me, fills me. She is my "undercover agent".
Adolescence would therefore be your Terra incognita, when you yourself were a teenager?
Yes, because we wonder all the time if the generations that follow us are different from ours, right? But it is true that when you summon the teenager that you have been, you realize that a lot of things are timeless. As an author, taking an interest in adults is fun, but less rewarding because we no longer find in them this part of anxious expectation vis-à-vis the future which is very strong among adolescents. In fact, it's very refreshing - even reassuring - to listen to young people talking ... even if they can be annoying in certain aspects (laughs).
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And if not, have you read the first 4 volumes? #larabedufutur # larabedufutur5 #jessuisessessenenmodeconfinement #bandedessinee #book #sunday #sunday #confinement #drawing #reading #reader #reader #librairie
A post shared by Riad Sattouf (@riadsattouf) on Mar 22, 2020 at 10:06 am PDT
You are a hit with your autobiography ("The Arab of the future"), Esther's biography ... when will we return to fiction?
In truth, I always have lots of desires, very diverse, for making comics ... but not to get lost, I trust the reader that I was when I was 14 years old. And at the time, I was waiting for the rest of the comics I loved, hoping that their authors were working on them. So I always felt an intense disappointment when I learned that they had given up for reasons X or Y. Remembering it, and knowing that The Arab of the futureand Les Cahiers d'Esther have a lot of readers, I prefer not to embark on new projects that might force me to put these two series aside. My teenage self would never forgive me (laughs). So I will wait to close these titles to start working on something else.
Cinema included?
Yes yes, I am also on stand-by in this area. I am asked, but I do not follow up so that my energy is not diluted in the ocean of projects that might interest me.
"Stories of my 14 years", Les cahiers d'Esther tome 5 - Riad Sattouf - Allary éditions, 16.90 euros
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