For more than thirty years, Patrick Timsit has been working on the project of interpreting this story by Albert Cohen published in 1954. Season after season, he has read, reread, annotated and ruminated on this work for which he has developed a real passion. A work which, as he says, is addressed directly to us, the "sons of living mothers". "No son really knows that his mother will die, and all sons are angry and impatient with their mothers, the fools so soon punished," writes Albert Cohen in the last pages. Before concluding with a praise, a sublime homage to mothers all over the world... thus making a particular story universal.
Le Livre de ma mère by Albert Cohen is published by Gallimard
Albert Cohen, born in 1895 in Corfu and died in Geneva in 1981, was a Swiss writer, playwright and poet. He was a diplomat and held a senior civil service position in Geneva. He published Solal, Mangeclous and in 1968 Belle du seigneur, which was awarded the Grand Prix du roman by the Académie française, and was his most successful book. In 1943, on the death of his mother, he published a Chant de mort in La France Libre, a sketch of what would become Le Livre de ma mère.
Distribution
With Patrick Timsit
Singer Imany and performs Smile by Charlie Chaplin and If you go away (Ne me quitte pas) by Jacques Brel
Guitar Stéfane Goldman
Original music Nicolas Errera
Director Sophie-Aude Picon
Assistant director Justine Dibling
Production
Creation for France Culture