Alexis Patri 2:00 p.m., August 28, 2021

The novelist and presswoman Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre is Isabelle Morizet's guest on Saturday in the program "There is not only one life in life".

The one who publishes her new novel "Our happy days" looks back on her five months spent on an anthropological mission among the Papuans Wolanis, during the summer of her 20 years.

INTERVIEW

She writes novels very far from the genre of autofiction. And yet, the life of the author Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre could be a novel. She once again demonstrates this on Saturday at the microphone of Isabelle Morizet in the show 

There is not only one life in

life

, where she tells the astonishing journey of the summer of her 20 years, where she spent five months away from the Papuans Wolanis of Papua New Guinea, "It was honestly one of the most fascinating experiences of my life", remembers with emotion The future editor-in-chief of

Point de vue

magazine 

, who went to accompany the anthropologist Stéphane Breton. 

>> Find Isabelle Morizet's shows every weekend from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Europe 1 as well as in podcast and replay here

"He was doing a study field in this tribe and suggested that I try to establish contact with women, who are necessarily more shy with a man", specifies Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre.

“Their language that had never been described. The women were still dressed in pandan leaf skirts. The men had penis holsters. We had the very first metal axes. There were still stone axes. was a totally isolated population. "

Five months in virtual autarky

At that time, ethnological tourism did not exist in New Guinea. "It was really extraordinary to meet these people, to spend time with them, to discover their ritual dances", rejoices the novelist. "When you are interested in humans, what an incredible chance to see this before it disappears! Stéphane Breton, he spent years there. He wrote a lot about them."

For five months, the young woman and the anthropologist will live in quasi-autarky with the Wolanis.

And their diet marked Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre.

"I came back to France thin as a nail. They didn't have much to eat. There was taro a little cooked under the ashes, a little sweet potatoes," she recalls.

“I ate opossum, which is, frankly, the most inedible thing there is. It has an extraordinarily bitter skin. So when you eat it, you have a very strong bitterness in your mouth. to have met them! How lucky to have known them! "

Perceived as "a ghost of incredible ugliness"

Papuans measure an average of 1.55m. They were surprised to discover Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre, a tall white woman with long, light blond hair. “They found me incredibly ugly,” laughs the author. "They didn't understand that I have old-fashioned hair. For them, blond was old. But at the same time, I had a young face. And above all, white skin, for them, maybe it was that of a ghost. At first, the Wolanis didn't want to touch me. They were afraid of me. "

Two moments of daily life will finally bring to the Wolanis the proof of the humanity of the young woman.

“At one point, I stretched and we saw my stomach appear. And there, I found myself with five women touching my navel,” she explains.

"If I had a belly button, it meant to them that I had a mother and that I had had an umbilical cord. So I was a living being."

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The second event that reassured the Papuans came when Adelaide de Clermont-Tonnerre injured her feet, during one of the tribe's usual trips of several kilometers in the forest.

“I ended up with a lot of people touching my injury,” she says.

"My body being corruptible, it meant for them that I was a living being."

The five-month anthropological mission completed, Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre returns to France.

"I left the Wolanis with a lot of tenderness and nostalgia, because I knew very well that I would probably never see them again," she concludes.

"And I knew this world was surely going to be gone."