“That Song Lost in the Depths of the Self”

Philippe S. Hadengue is a highly original writer whose novels leave durable, disturbing impressions. Hadengue is painstaking, meticulous, but not prolific. As he himself specifies, he "cannot write during years when he is painting—and vice versa". Ever since he was a child, he has been alternating these two creative activities. "One side of me takes over for a while", he adds, "out of necessity". The key word here is "necessity". Hadengue's arresting style has indeed, in terms of forcefulness and memorability, few rivals in contemporary French literature. Occasionally wrenching classical syntax into perturbing forms, at times using words oddly, Hadengue's acute prose reflects deep, troubled, unavowable suffering and tense, suffocating atmospheres. Admitting that a given manuscript page may go through eighty versions before he is satisfied with it, the author himself defines his style as a "search for that song lost in the depths of the self".