EP 52 : PAUL MORAND - De retour d'exil (Le flagellant de Séville, 1951)

OP – Episode 52: Back from Exile (The Flagellant of Seville (1951), Paul Morand) “On March 3, 1951, a man who could already be retired receives two young people for lunch in his suite at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris. This old man, whom the years have not yet withered, has been dreaming of revenge ever since he finished the manuscript of his latest novel, his great novel, his longest, most ambitious, and also his most personal. He has been contemplating this literary reconquest for at least seven years. On September 9, 1944, he was lined up, not against a wall and before a rifle like Robert Brasillach a few months later, but alongside eleven other writers guilty of collaboration on a page of the newspaper Les Lettres Françaises.” The very first men to be accused by the National Writers' Committee, soon to be joined by 84 others, then by 61 more, bringing their number to over 150. But this blacklist, in 1951, after the amnesty law of January 5th, was already ancient history. The old man of the Crillon no longer had time to brood. He felt almost like Napoleon. Like him, he would return from his exile on the island of Elba. All he had to do was gather his troops and overthrow the existentialist, absurd, and nihilistic dictatorship of French literature; the empire of beautiful, supple letters, of which he had been one of the greatest generals during the interwar period, could then be revived and spread throughout the country. So, to spread the rumor of his return—he who wasn't banished to the middle of the Mediterranean but to the shores of Lake Geneva in Vevey, Switzerland—he ushered the two young people he had invited into his suite, had them sit down, and began to tell them about his new novel, his great novel of penance, which would be published in three months in France and Spain. He had had his epiphany while contemplating Goya's works at the San Fernando Academy in Andalusia, and in particular the Procession of the Penitents… The rest is for you to discover by listening to the podcast. Feel free to subscribe and share if you find the content interesting! ____________________ Chapters: 00:00: Introduction __________ Media Instagram:   / oublieuseposterite   Twitter:   / oublieusepost   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1REFNnn... Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast... Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/show/5614077 Podcast Addict: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/420... Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/eae... Email: [email protected] ____________________ Credits: Epidemic Sound Pexels Bing