Izvještaj s događaja: Hervé Le Tellier, "Anomalija"

WRITTEN BY: Nika Komarić

Sarajevo is a city of artists. Generations and generations of writers, musicians, painters all flocked to the garden behind the Buybook Bookstore on Friday, July 5, looking for another place to promote the new novel of one of the most famous contemporary French writers, even though the tickets had long been sold out. Bookstan's 9th edition is marked by themes of war, hope and despair, and Le Tellier's ‘The Anomaly’ fits perfectly into this framework, with its terrifying tale of a modern world that is a simulation of reality and can be interrupted at any moment if its rules are broken. The inspiration for the novel arose much earlier and developed a complex dystopian story about the conflict with oneself and one's beliefs. The novel functions as a mirror that shows us a reflection of reality in a world that is no longer that. The conversation with the writer was led by Velibor Čolić, who seemed to know what questions to ask the author in order to get him to talk. The conversation started with the topic of the French elections and the fear about the future of democracy due to the rise of the extreme right, not only in France, but in the whole of Europe. This novel, which is made up of nine different styles, mixed throughout the novel from crime, introspective novel, British romantic series, intimate novel and science fiction, inspired by Nick Postrom's work on simulations, validates the idea that we too are characters in one novel and that reality is just a simulation. The playfulness of form and content can be explained by the author's answer to the seemingly banal question 'why do you write', to which his reply was 'to experience lives and worlds that I will never be able to experience'. According to Le Tellier, the magic of literature lies in the diversity of life, in the process of imagining characters in which they become our friends. In this way, the role of literature becomes deliverance from harsh reality; imagining other worlds saves us from reality. The author explains his influences as an echo of other books and writers that he feels in himself. ‘The Anomaly’ abounds with references from popular culture, TV series, movies, literature, among others it mentions Stephen King, Matrix and Dexter. The influence of film and cinematography on the novel is also reflected in the vividness of the narratives. The conversation ended with a discussion about the author's latest novel called ‘Le nom sur le mur’, which was published this spring by Gallimard. This novel, which is at the crossroads between journalism and fiction, reality and imagination, was inspired by the monument of the 20-year-old partisan André Chaix that he came across by chance, and whose life story inspired him to write a novel about the French resistance movement and the struggle against fascism. a topic that we need today more than ever, if we don't want to repeat the past.

Photo (c) Milomir Kovačević Strašni