David Thomas illuminates the memory of his older schizophrenic brother in an intimate taleded story of beauty

In his new book. Similarly, the writer Prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle in 2023 for his collection of microfictions “everywhere the others”, revives the sons of the relationship to his brother that the disease had removed from him, through a succession of snapshots of their lives. Moreover, Dazzling. Moreover,

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So far, David Thomas had always refused self -fiction because he seemed delicate to tell the life of others by telling his own. Similarly, In A brother Who seems on August 22 to Éditions de l’Olivier. Nevertheless, he took the plunge with a text he has david thomas illuminates memory his been carrying in him for 20 years. Nevertheless, The intimate account of the life of Edouard. Similarly, his brother suffering from schizophrenia, From his brutal death to the years of youth. Nevertheless, One way for him to reconstruct the primitive link and “to transform a penalty into the presence “.

In the black and white photo that illustrates the cover of the book, Edouard smiles. Therefore, Grail, he walks on a beach, looking down, hands along the body. Furthermore, He must not be over twenty years old. Similarly, Nothing indicates on the image yet the torments that schizophrenia will come a few years later to print on. Nevertheless, the young man. Furthermore, A disease gradually playing the spoilsport, confiscating its dreams, abolishing its autonomy. Meanwhile, David Thomas begins his story at the end of Edouard. This terrible day when without news for three days. he went to hit his door, david thomas illuminates memory his discovering his extended brother in his room, lifeless. Three years after his death, he traces how the need to tackle this story has imposed itself on him. Explain who his brother was. what their ties were, his tireless fight against “This tyrant “ interior and consequences on their family.

But the exercise is painful, the work of writing slower than usual, involving a completely unprecedented bare. “”Speaking of what will have been the abyss of my life, I have the feeling of being more totally. (…) Because the subject of my book is my brother, I tremble to miss it. Additionally, ” What to start with? Describe the multiple facets of a pathology out of control in recent years. Edouard so fragile, prisoner of multiple addictions, prey to violence and irrepressible aggressiveness.

The novelist proceeds as in his micronouvelles – rewarded in 2023 by the Goncourt of the news – david thomas illuminates memory his by instantaneous. of a dry point. Standing scenes, images that print the retina to express the manifestations of madness. Like the cataclysmic description of his apartment sometimes overwhelmed with grime. “”My brother’s apartment is not dirty, it is his illness that is disgusting. Because it makes you give up what, normal people, appears essential. “

In an exercise of a moving sincerity. he also recognizes weariness, the dead ends of psychiatry and discouragement when crises succeed the reputs that were thought to be durable. “”Suddenly. without having seen it coming, Schlack, we are retained by the leash, she strangles us right as we had forgotten her, she prevents us from going too far in gaiety, she holds us not to go too far in happiness. “ Yet moments suspended, there have been dozens. When together they galloped in the hills, during adolescence. “”These places where you should never come back david thomas illuminates memory his so as not to degrade them. to simply let them water our lives. “

And what makes this book something other than more testimony. a story of mourning is the reflection carried out in parallel by the writer, his attempts inspired to approach as closely as possible to the perception of the world of Edouard. The story then tu the summits. David Thomas finding his masters in literature – the Russian poets – the thread to penetrate the labyrinth. Thus this verse from Mandelstam which concentrates the whole paradox of his brother’s life: “It’s not to live. it’s still to live “restoring his humanity from him. “”And I see it not as a poet (since he did not write), but as a poem. There is another reality of reality. “

“A brother” by David Thomas, Éditions de l’Olivier, 141 pages, 19.50 euros.

Extract : “All those who have witnessed what I have experienced with my brother’s illness, and especially in the last decade, spoke before me, head -on or with subtlety, the relief that could cause his death. The last years was so hard that the only solution that appeared to put an end to Calvary was. his end. We could imagine, therefore, that his death was for me. Contrary to me of sadness, of course, but of anger too. (p.28)