of the necessity for (self-) evacuation
A discussion presented in partnership with Galerie UQO, Knot Project Space and La Mirage at:
Galerie UQO
101 Rue Saint-Jean-Bosco
Gatineau, QC
Nathanaël’s œuvre is an undertaking of failure of the usual markers ; it seeks to cultivate the fault (la faille) at the heart of the creative gesture : thus, notions of œuvre, of book, of origin, are re-questioned, displaced, and circumscribed anew in her work. In the course of this exchange, we sought to understand how Nathanaël’s scripturary process aims to "catastrophe the book". It is, for the author, a matter of evacuating a certain intellectual, occidental, secular tradition, and to detach from certain prêts-à-penser. Following their prior interview, "Le dernier mot de l’anémone" (L’Hexagone, 2018), Nathanaël and Hervé Sanson pursued their reflection and dialogue along the various lines traversing this work: languages; translation; origin(s); photography; montage; and finally, the question of the archive.
Nathanaël is the author of more than a score of books written in English or in French and published in the United States, Québec and France. Recent works include Pasolini's Our (2018), D'un geste décidé (2018), La mort de ma sœur (2018) and Alula, de son nom de plume (2018).
Hervé Sanson, PhD, specializing in francophone literatures of the Maghreb, is a scholar associated with l'ITEM (CNRS). The author of a book of interviews with Habib Tengour, entitled La trace et l'écho. Une écriture en chemin (Le Tell, Algérie, 2012), in 2013, he edited an issue of Europe on Moroccan literature. He collaborated on the critical and genetic edition of the Portraits d'Albert Memmi, published by CNRS éditions and edited by Guy Degas. In addition, he published in 2017, in collaboration with Albert Memmi, Penser à vif. De la colonisation à la laïcité, with éditions Non-Lieu. Finally, he is responsible for the scholarly coordination of the critical and genetic edition of Mohammed Dib's short stories, forthcoming from CNRS éditions in 2020, on the occasion of the centenary of the author's birth. Hervé Sanson is also interested in the avant-gardes.