Rights sold to: Taiwan (Aquarius), Korea (Sangsang School Publishing)
Under option in: Albania, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, USA, Vietnam
“What am I doing here?
I have a pitchfork in my hand, the handle slick with filth - I’m shifting manure. The cows are watching disdainfully, and the only soothing thing is the gentle gaze of one heifer. My hands are spattered with slurry, they stink. Every five minutes, I run to the kitchen sink to wash them. Yesterday, I wanted to be Fellini, today I’ve become a toilet attendant for cows.”
Jean-Louis Fournier can do anything. As a film student in Paris, he can decide he wants to overhaul a farm for the sake of the farmer’s lovely daughter. The father had once been a fishmonger, he could back to the fishmongers.
He is a bit mad, this Fournier, and when he is in love - which, apparently happens quite often - he goes even more mad. Perhaps that is why he can write books for us?
Well, let’s hope he stays in love a long time, then.
Before becoming a film director and creating cartoon characters for television (La Noiraude); before collaborating with Pierre Desproges on La Minute nécessaire de Monsieur Cyclopède; before writing twenty books that have made us laugh and cry (Grammaire française et impertinente, Le CV de Dieu, Il a jamais tué personne mon papa, Mon dernier cheveux noir); before receiving the 2008 Prix Femina for his autobiographical book Où on va papa? (Where We Going, Daddy?), Jean-Louis Fournier had another life. For a few months, he was a farm labourer…
J’ai dans les mains un fourchet, le manche est poisseux, je charrie du fumier. Les vaches me regardent avec dédain, seul le regard très doux d’une génisse m’apaise.
Mes mains sont barbouillées de purin, elles puent. Je cours toutes les cinq minutes à l’évier de la cuisine pour les laver. Hier je voulais devenir Fellini, aujourd’hui, je suis dame pipi de vaches. »
Jean-Louis Fournier est capable de tout. Étudiant en cinéma à Paris, il est capable de vouloir reprendre une ferme pour les beaux yeux de la fille du fermier. Le père aurait été poissonnier, il reprenait la poissonnerie.
Il est un peu fou, Fournier, et quand il est amoureux, apparemment ça lui arrive souvent, il devient encore plus fou. Peut-être que c’est ça qui lui permet de nous écrire des livres ?
Alors souhaitons-lui d’être encore longtemps amoureux.