A little workaholic, Olivia Ruiz?

In two years, the "chocolate woman" - named after her second album that sold more than a million copies - wrote two books and put on a show that she sang, played and danced.

Nothing seems to stop the one that the public discovered more than 20 years ago in the "Star Academy", tele-hook where she was in the semi-finals.

AFP met her at the end of April in a café not far from the studio where she is recording her next album, in full promotion of her second novel "Listen to the rain falling", which will be released on May 11 by JC Lattès.

"Right now, I keep saying to myself: + My God, I'm 42 years old and I still have a billion desires +. Life is too short!", She slips, in a to smile.

Bestseller

Known for her music with pop and folk tones, the interpreter of "Elle panic" or "J'traine des pieds" made a remarkable entry into literature in June 2020 with "La dresser with colored drawers".

Sold in more than 300,000 copies, the book is a fiction inspired by his personal story.

Born Olivia Blanc -- Ruiz is the surname of one of her grandmothers -- she grew up in Marseillette (Aude) in a family of Spanish origin.

Three of his grandparents fled Spain during the civil war.

But of this story, she knows nothing.

So, to "fill in the holes", she imagined the story of Rita, an exile, who bequeaths a chest of drawers to her granddaughter upon her death.

Inside, the secrets of a painful story linked to exile are revealed.

Singer and novelist Olivia Ruiz, March 28, 2022 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP / Archives

Both strong and vulnerable female characters, simple and colorful writing: the book immediately found its audience.

To the point of having been the subject of a comic book adaptation.

A mini-series is also in the works.

Not a sequel, "Listen to the rain falling", tells the story of Carmen, one of Rita's sisters.

If Francoism, and uprooting, remain in the background, the story focuses on the need for emancipation of this young woman and her difficulties in finding her place in France.

Break the silences

"How do we do it when we are no longer from there and we are not from here either? This question obsesses me," she explains.

An obsession nourished by the silence of his grandparents: "As soon as I said the word Spain to my grandmother, the tears began to flow. My grandfather, on the other hand, got angry and asked me to stop searching in family history.

In response to this "murderous silence", Olivia Ruiz set out to piece together her family puzzle.

In literature or music.

Singer and novelist Olivia Ruiz, March 28, 2022 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP / Archives

Thus, in 2016, she created "Volver" ("come back", in Spanish), a dance show about uprooting.

In October, she gave the cover to the Bouffes du Nord in Paris with "Bouches sewn", where she combines the history of Spanish exiles with that of exiles today.

"I had this deep desire to remember that exile and exiles do not belong to the past and that it is a reality that millions of people live. And I wanted to do it in a poetic way".

If she confides that she has found in literature a "pleasant space where there are no limits", there is no question of abandoning the stage.

The one who says she has "mourned her personal history", however nourishes the dream of leaving, one day, to live in the countries of her ancestors.

And to ask: "What uprooted person does not plan to return to the land of his ancestors?"

© 2022 AFP