ABSTRACT
Dear Cécile, I feel so honoured and privileged, as a former colleague and a close friend, to be able to initiate this dialogue across languages, cultures and continents with you. Since 1995, you have been publishing poems, short stories, novels and essays, while leading a career as Associate Professor of English at the University of Paris 12 and continue to bring out remarkable volumes of such creations, winning several prestigious awards on the way. However, I would like to single out my favourite text – A fleur de mots, La passion de l’écriture (2004) which is an incredibly beautiful essay on writing generally and your own creative process. I personally think that this book needs to be translated into English, without any further delay, for the benefit of the Anglophone audience worldwide. There you refer to the page as “this strange country of water and reflections” and describe your passion for words, specifying that there is “no special time for writing”. The need for space, “a room of one’s own”, seems to be still the preoccupation of many writers. At the same time, because of your diverse peregrinations (an artist mother who had lived in India, a maternal family in Canada, relatives in Belgium, and your husband’s roots in Tunisia, students in Finland), you have travelled to and discovered the history and memory of nations and peoples. Is Space or Time that stirs you most into writing?
