It is not possible to know where the writing came from, what impulse it responded to, what need it arose out of. However, there is no doubt that both the author and the reader are inherent in life. Therefore, the very fashionable debate about how much reality is in certain fictions is pointless and absurd. It’s a must-know before you start writing about anything, and if it’s discovered later, it’s best to ignore the noise trying to silence the literature that really matters, the only thing that really matters. For this reason delphine de vigan (Boulogne-Billancourt, France, 1966) no longer worries or frets when the magic word comes up in conversations with journalists: autofiction. Anyone who has read his works knows that his biography is found more in some of his novels than in others, but above all his experience, sensations, feelings, perspective as that privileged observer of the world are present. surrounds the author. Because words have always been used, even before it was even published (he made his debut with Días sin hambre under a pseudonym in 2011), to try to understand what was difficult on his own: pain, suffering, death, old age, sickness, violence… existence . He is also in his most recent book, The Kings of the House (Anagram).
In his latest novel, Los reyes de la casa, he once again explores the most perverted, hidden sides of seemingly vulgar characters. Is mediocrity a social trap?
This question is difficult to answer. Because we live in an age where it seems normal, people don’t look at the truth behind parents posting about their kids online. There is a certain appearance of vulgarity that prevents us from seeing further. But for me, as a novelist, it’s important to discover what lies behind that facade.
Do you think we are aware of the real impact of social networks on our lives?
We are slowly realizing this. We are beginning to see how profoundly the way we live and exist in the world has changed. Real potential dangers are emerging through new generations born with social networks.
And what are these dangers?
A fundamental question is whether we parents have the image of our children. Although by law they are guardians, not owners, of these images, many parents consider it normal to manage their children’s image. There is a real debate about this, to what extent do we have a right to expose our children?
And therefore, exploiting them.
Yes, to do business with them. Another fundamental issue brought up by social networks is the problem of information, especially for younger generations, who tend to access information only through the internet, Twitter, TikTok… There is something very dangerous in this, because the algorithms of these applications give confidence. By being informed in this way according to their own ideas, they will never be confronted with an opinion contrary to their own ideas, they will not be exposed to contradiction. If I turn on French public radio, I will listen to people who say the opposite of what I think, but it is interesting for me to listen to that speech and realize that there are people who think the opposite of me. If I inform myself through social networks, that will tend to keep me in my own universe of thought.
What about the need to be recognized, to be seen?
In fact, it is a need that human beings have always had, something that defines us as human beings. But social networks are like a sounding board for this phenomenon. Now we have the chance to put ourselves on the stage, to become a product that we exhibit and sell. And there is something astonishing about it. We live in an age of too much voyeurism. But I believe there will be a comeback in the search for a more secretive way of life. In fact, I perceive the need to protect themselves very strongly in the young people and adolescents I interact with, and I believe that this change will come from them. The problem is that they no longer have a choice, if a teenager is not on social networks, it is a kind of social suicide.
Are we a selfish society?
Yes a little. It scares me sometimes to see how we can lose our collective sense. But something good will come out of social networks, and there are great, collective things happening in them, wonderful things are happening. But the aspect that stands out most at the moment is the very individualistic, very narcissistic dimension.
Are we living in a new and far more dangerous Big Brother?
When George Orwell wrote 1984, he envisioned an outdoor surveillance unit. But we live in a world where we create our own surveillance unit, Big Brother each of us. Big Brother doesn’t need to watch us anymore because we’ve built the tools to do that. Owning a mobile phone means they can track our behavior, our actions… Now Big Brother is our phone and we use it for the benefit of an entity we can’t even represent. Who is using all this data? We know they are Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple… But there is something very abstract. We have become a commodity and this attention market has become so complex that we all live in a kind of fatalism, acceptance and submission.
Yes, we seem to have accepted that we can’t do anything.
Of course, it is necessary to retire from the world. And right now, it’s very difficult to live that way if we want to interact with the outside world. Small details like cookies. Rejecting cookies takes time, I often try, but sometimes I’m in a hurry and accept them. And to me, our relationship with all this has a very symbolic meaning: it’s as if we gave him the cookies for his firm acceptance.
Leaving this dark universe aside, in his work, social networks never take a position on what he writes, be it old age, violence or mental illness. Should it always be like this, or should the writer keep a certain moral distance from what he writes?
I wouldn’t generalize because I don’t like to say that the author has to do this or that. There are thousands of ways to become a writer, and some may want to, feel like positioning themselves as moralists. Instead of judging a subject, I try to explore and understand. What interests me most are the complexity, dullness, contradictions, paradoxes of the characters. I’m more interested in this than expressing my own opinion on something or judging something.
The lack of communication in his writings is very evident. Can silence make a life heavy? How to fight this silence? Maybe typing?
Yes, I researched the theme of silence in Loyalties. In that novel, the characters are victims of all that is not said. And it’s true that writing can be a way to break the silence. In recent years, books have been published in France that make it possible to say things that are kept secret. In general, I have a feeling that there is a real freedom of the word, at least for women. In fact, social networks also contributed to this, so I say that everything is not black and white, there are women on the Internet who have promised to break the very heavy and harmful silences.
Now that you say it, it’s funny because #MeToo exploded in 2017 but aired at night in 2011.
Yes that is right. In fact, it’s interesting to see how it would resonate differently if it were released now. Because although it had a great success in France and in many countries, the topics you mentioned were not highlighted at that time, the journalists talked little about the violence and incest I committed in the novel, they were more interested in other issues. aspects of the book. If it was published now, maybe they would read it again.
In that novel he constructed a universal story based on his own suffering, that of his mother. Is that the best way to tell from the particular to the universal?
This is the way I know and love. Most of my books deal more with the closeness of characters and families to try to convey something more universal. In The Kings of the House, I look at this fascinating family, their ties, but it’s a way of telling our time. In perhaps one of my most personal books, Nothing Against the Night I tried to understand my mother’s pain to tell something more universal, what goes on in families, how some dramas resonate across generations. It is accessing something more universal through the intimate.
What does the term autofiction mean to you? After spending an entire year answering this question, I ask you: Is this your autobiographical novel?
I usually defend myself against these labels that don’t concern me either. As you know, my books are very different from each other. I played with these codes a lot, used them and somehow got over it. I have two novels with autobiographical or biographical sources: Días sin hambre, which tells my own story, and Nothing Against the Night, which tries to tell the story of my mother. The rest of my novels are fiction, but of course this fiction feeds on very intimate and personal things. For example, Loyalty is almost a more autobiographical novel, even if it isn’t, the fiction holds me down deeply, precisely because the fiction allows me to go quite far in describing certain situations. So I don’t know what an autobiography is, perhaps a claim to seek truth. That’s how it was when the Void came across the night when I was seeking the truth, but when that truth was absent, or at least out of reach.
Is there self-censorship while writing in this sense?
Yes, yes, of course, especially when writing autobiographical novels. Days Without Hunger and Nothing Against the Night are the novels that I mostly self-censor, and there are things that I decided not to tell because they were too violent for me. Nothing stands up to the night I deleted an entire chapter dedicated to my father because he’s still alive and I didn’t want to hurt him. In fiction, on the other hand, I don’t censor myself because I can attribute situations or emotions to characters and the reader won’t know that this is something I can experience or feel.
The truth is that although all his work is fiction, he radiates honesty, truth. How does he find the right words for the truth to come out like this?
I know I am very interested in trying to name things by writing down, clarifying, explaining, illuminating, as if it were an enigma or a mathematical problem. But I couldn’t explain how I did it.
This leads me to ask if writing is some kind of self-awareness tool. Because I don’t think it’s therapy.
No, neither do I. But it is true that writing allows you to know yourself better. In my case, it was the writing of a private diary that I kept for years before writing the novel. That diary was a self-awareness tool and probably a tool for me to build myself. But also because that article will not be read. I keep, maybe I should burn, but I have dozens of notebooks that I keep for now, and this has helped me get to know myself better.
And dare you post them?
No, no, no, never (laughs).
After reading your books, I always wonder the same thing: What drives you to write? And I’ve come to the conclusion that his novels are his way of seeing the world, maybe wrong…
I too often wonder why I write, where this urge to sit at the computer every day comes from. True, I want to somehow express my view of the world through sensations, emotions… Often times it happens because something shocks or surprises me, often this precedes the urge to write.