“Act locally, think with the world” (E.Glissant)

“Eva Doumbia had drown me a wonderful portrait of Elise and David Pisani, and their children, the quality of their hosting and their food, the charms of the Charente, and the shops around the residence.

Elise Pisani and Daniel Roy, a character to discover in Châteauneuf sur Charente, that this retired postman in love with books and literature, came to welcome me at the station, (5 minutes from the house) and it was already warm to cross the city with them. My visit had previously been perfectly organized by exchanging emails with Elise.

The house where I live is adjoining theirs. Everything is done there to make you feel good, right down to the bouquet of flowers on arrival, renewed during my stay by the first roses from the garden.

I have chosen to dine every evening with them and have nothing but joy about it, as David is an outstanding cook who concocts original, balanced and tasty dishes with the most natural products.

The conversation is as stimulating as the rest. This couple has several lives, Brazzaville in childhood for Elise, Malta for David, but also many trips and a very precious relationship facility, everything is simple and fluid.

I learned a lot at their table, and we discussed many subjects, up to the question of the rewriting of literary works via the teams of “sensivity readers”, a discussion in which Gabrielle, 14 years old (if I do not abuse), brought her point of view, but also evoked her passion for the skies which she would like to be looked at by researchers from all over the world.

Elise Billiard, as she signs them, showed me some publications made in Malta or Charente, and I found there particularly in “Entre là Déplier les collines” a conjunction of stars (mine): those of Jacques Lacarrière and Edouard Glissant. I like his writing and I wish him to use this gift.

David showed me around his studio, a whole world whose key word is freedom. I traveled there to Valletta, from before. It made me think of the family photos of Joël Andrianomearisoa and the history of Madagascar, I don’t know why.

But a residency is first and foremost about work, of course.

I chose the upper room (second bedroom) to write because the small windows overlook the sky and the roofs of Châteauneuf.

The program was simple:

Get up, breakfast with radio, exercises, the body, writing, short run outside before lunch, meal, writing, 45 min to 1 hour walk, around 4:30 p.m. / 5 p.m., along the Charente, there are four routes or five, and the gentleness, whatever the weather, of the river makes walking, the body, a moment when the work continues without warning, it is very precious.

Back to work until 7:45/50 p.m., it’s 8 p.m., it’s time to knock on the next door.

After dinner, sometimes back to writing, but more often to reading once the after-meal mini-tour in the village has been completed.

What happened during this week is crucial: my previous residency had allowed me to gather and classify all the material for my book on Edouard Glissant au Diamant.

These days made me move on to the next phase: start dividing this material into different chapters, try to validate the general construction, and work on the writing of certain passages to have before me all the types of texts that will more or less cohabit in the manuscript. What a challenge this construction site is!

The dice were thrown in Brazza sur Charente…

What I experienced for a week was the application of the thought of Edouard Glissant on which I am working.

Several languages are spoken among the Pisani. We constantly open up to the other, with the exact distance that allows us to approach further or to stay at the limit that we choose, (see the concept of opacity at Glissant)

“I can change by exchanging with the other, without losing myself or distorting myself,” says Glissant. I changed pace, everything was calm, something captured here does won’t go away.