Bridget Lacombe
for two weeks Madame Figaro forces us to discover the books that people like to give as gifts Véronique Nichanian, artistic director of the Hermès men’s collection, explains why she often chooses: Tell them about battles, kings and elephants By Matthias Enard.
“Reading is a part of my life. Holidays and weekends are mostly dedicated to it. I really like to give books as gifts when I go to people’s houses for dinner. I find it more fun than a bottle of wine or flowers. It’s an opportunity to discover universes, through literary selection. I used to organize evenings where everyone would share their favorite work of the year. In addition to receiving the Goncourt des Lycées in 2010, Tell them about battles, kings and elephants By Mathias Enard, I think it’s a sobering read in the anxiety-inducing times we live in. It was this title, delicious and Alexandrian, that drew me in first. A promise of travel, a moment of poetry, an invitation to let the imagination wander, confirmed by the pages.
It is a fairy tale at the intersection of reality and imagination, an adventure novel in the 16th century.e century, where the cultures of the Renaissance and the Ottoman Empire intertwine; Michelangelo is invited to the very European and very tolerant Constantinople to build a bridge over the Golden Horn. Through this story of the Bosphorus, Matthias Enard talks about the artist’s work, his difficulties, his dreams, his inspirations… This bridge would never have been built, but without this journey to the East. , which would happen, Michelangelo k Certainly we did not design the Laurentian Medicean Library or the Sistine Chapel, As we know it. On a more personal note, my father was born in Istanbul, I went there with him, and even if the book is a dreamy Constantinople in 1506, the scent of the East that comes from it is a part of me; DNA”. M.L.
Tell them about battles, kings and elephants by Mathias Enard, Ed Acte Sud, coll “Babel”, 176 pages.
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Source: Le Figaro
