Jean-Paul Dubois. “If your job is to write books, they will make you the sole master of your life.”

Madame Figaro. – What is its origin? The origin of tears ?
Jean-Paul Dubois. – I never have a finished project when writing a book. Sometimes an insignificant event gives rise to an idea, the beginning of a story. So the day I heard on my father’s car radio in 1961 the announcement of the death of United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld in a plane crash, interspersed with other more personal memories, is the beginning of this novel. Once this nucleus exists, other “particles” that have already passed through the sieve of memory will be collected by attachment and magnetization, around which is still unreadable chaos. And yet, for the most part, the memory is sorted, and a small world begins to exist: the psychiatrist, the father, the murdered, artificial intelligence, body bags, dogs, few people and a lot of water. It is up to me, then, to sit down at the table and in thirty-one days build (for it is a rule) a universe within which life must be able to come and go and circulate to the point where we can actually feel it. moving

The general thread of the novel “Water” is…
Water is the common thread of all things. We ourselves are containers of water. He lives in us. In the book, he is undoubtedly the supporting role in the film. I use the word “film” on purpose. Because the idea is that we see it, we feel it, we hear it. That we eventually get used to the harshness of the dusty rain. In the 1980s, Lars von Trier made his first film, titled Element of crime and which begins in Cairo. A European is lying on the psychoanalyst’s sofa, with whom he is talking about flooded, drowned Europe. And we see corpses of horses being carried by the rivers. And he says:Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink. (Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink.) Forty years later, my memory brought back these images without asking. And my “movie” can begin. It started raining on the book from the first page.

What made you a writer? ?
If your job is to write books, and if, in addition, luck really “hits” you, then they will allow you to wake up when you are no longer sleepy, write stories when you want, and above all, they will make you the sole owner. of the time of your life.

As in many of your novels, the protagonist is named Paul…
All my books are written in first person and Paul always provides the voice. Therefore, I confirm for half of my name all the flaws, absurdities and other qualities of these stories. Unlike Paul, Jean has always chosen to stay in the closet. But seriously, who is hoping to fool?