You’ll have to kill us
Natacha Boussaa
Paris, Temps clair,
Tuesday, April 26, 2011,
Despite its hard-hitting title “Il vous faudra nous tuer” (which, we later learn, is merely a slight reworking of a Chateaubriand quotation), the book – barely begun – had remained in its place at the corner of the bed, as if forgotten for (too) long months. There’s no point in trying to find the reasons why someone would one day take up again what had once been prematurely stopped. In any case, I was missing something.
Occupation de l'Université de Grenoble - Porte fermée
A first novel, which adopts a lively, frank and direct tone, and which – it’s fair to say – doesn’t bother with any embellishments. Much like the young people at the heart of Natacha Boussaa’s book, who, as the pages turn, take a big crap on society. It’s March 2006 in France, and the notorious CPE (or, more explicitly, the Contrat Première Embauche, or first job contract) has set the world alight, arousing the ire of young people (and not just young people…) and inviting them to take to the streets.
Grenoble - Manifestations CPE
We follow Lena, 27, a student of literature (3rd cycle), hostess in a company (to finance her studies), but who hides to read Antonin Artaud because literature, and more generally books, take on for others a somewhat troubled and suspicious air. We discover her among her merry band of friends, composite and motley, with their semblance of choice, in a world that is questioning and worrying itself to no end in the face of prevailing precariousness and a more than hazardous professional integration.
2006 - CPE - CRS
“This simple difficulty in accessing housing and employment reflected on the rest of our lives. My generation “got the hang of it”, and this powerlessness made us fearful. Fearful of everything. Nowadays, leaving your partner is a real risk. It’s an experiment, a folly. Circumstances have made us dependent, timid and cowardly. The economy has castrated us. Yes, my generation has gained considerable moral freedom, but it has also lost the right to experiment.” (pages 72-73)
A novel of freedom and resistance, as sanguine as we like it, which paints the portrait of a youth at the mercy of a two-speed society, at once free in its morals, sometimes even sickening and depraved to excess, and yet sequestered in a world that no longer allows the experience of a life.
Ambitious with rage and brilliantly surly.
Elisa Palmer
You'll have to kill us
Natacha Boussaa
Editions Denoël
16 €
Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
