Ce que l’amour dit à la mort

Each summer, France Culture takes over the courtyard of the Calvet Museum for a week of readings, poetry, thought, and artistic creations. In resonance with the Festival d’Avignon’s programme, this edition celebrates Arab culture and language—its literature and musicality. Renowned actresses and actors will lend their voices to emblematic texts, joined by writers, poets, musicians, and guest artists specially invited for the occasion.

Ce que l’amour dit à la mort, Mathias Enard

Arab poetry has been singing of love since the 6th century, even before the emergence of Islam. It then flourished alongside it—in Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba—throughout a vast empire stretching from the edges of Central Asia to the gardens of Spain.
Fifteen hundred years of poetry, thousands of poets—women and men—some of whom are still waiting to be discovered in the manuscripts of great Arab libraries, while others have become shining stars in the poetic firmament. The great Abbasid poets, like Abu Nuwas and Al-Mutanabbi, already raised high the banner of Arabic poetry long before the year 1000.
What strikes us today is their immense freedom of tone, the power of their wit, and the strength of their imagination. Some turn their backs on death and plunge into the pleasures of love to overcome it—like Ibn Zaydun and his lover, Wallada. Others face death head-on, defying it with courage or embracing it with resignation, like Abu al-Atahiya.
Today’s poets—Iman Mersal, Niamat Hassan, among others—whether Iraqi, Egyptian, or Palestinian, all carry this legacy. Even in the midst of the most atrocious destruction, amid the roar of bombs and the cries of the wounded, rise the voices of those about to die—whispers in the night of our troubled conscience.

Mathias Énard
Born in 1972, Mathias Énard studied Persian and Arabic and spent long periods in the Middle East. He lives in Barcelona. His novels are published by Actes Sud, including La Perfection du tir (2003, Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie), Remonter l’Orénoque (2005), Zone (2008, Prix Décembre, SGDL Thyde-Monnier grant, Prix Candide, Prix du Livre Inter 2009, Prix Initiales), Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants (2010, Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, Prix du Livre en Poitou-Charentes), Street of Thieves (2012, Prix Liste Goncourt / Le Choix de l’Orient, Prix littéraire de la Porte Dorée, Prix du Roman News), Compass (2015, Prix Goncourt, Prix Liste Goncourt / Le Choix de la Suisse), The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild (2020), Deserter (2023), and Melancholy of the Outlands (2024).

With Anne Alvaro, Younès Boucif, Johanna Nizard, Lyes Salem
And a chorus of actors from the 84th class of ENSATT (École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre)
Maëlle Garcia-Kenoui, Nils Garrivier, Véronique Gawedzki, and Tristan Legras
Original music and performance Guillaume Léglise
Cello Lina Belaïd
Directed by Baptiste Guiton
Assistant director Claire Chaineaux