Reading in 3 voices (1 writer + 2 actors)

Tue 23 June at 8pm / Duration: 45 min / Free of charge

An incredible adventure novel, pulsating throughout both in the language used and the way it has to send the word on an explorative mission.

Captain Belalcazar, retired archaeologist and distant descendant of a Spanish conquistador, sails off once more towards the Peruvian jungle to look for the mysterious Inca city of Païtiti. A beautiful ship, a good crew, a carefully planned itinerary - this time it will work. Except that nothing is ever as planned. Obstacles multiply. Surprises are everywhere. All of which seems to make the writer secretly delighted.

Background

Patrice Pluyette was born in 1977 in Chevreuse. He studied literature at the Sorbonne University, graduated with a Master’s degree on Ionesco. In 2002, he swapped competitive examinations for teaching and focused on writing. In 2004, he opted to live in the Morbihan area. Following a collection of poems published in 2001, called Décidément rien (Galerie-Édition Racine), he had two novels or stories published by Maurice Nadeau - Les béquilles (2004) and Un vigile (2005) - and two novels published by Seuil: Blanche (2006) and La traversée du Mozambique par temps calme (2008).

Extract

He leaves for the Andes a few weeks later, alone and acting on impulse, in a small rowing boat. He knows absolutely nothing about great expeditions or sailing. The crossing lasts nine weeks. He is washed up a few kilometres from where he left off, unconscious, having adopted a whale calf which swims around his boat and pushes it with his tail towards the safety of the coast. One year later, he tries again, alone once more, but in a bigger boat this time. In this boat, Belalcazar gets so bored he decides to try with a crew next time. On a moonlit night, on the waters of the South Seas, under a calm sky, he pretends to throw himself in the clear waters to sink to the bottom while screaming out the name of a woman, certain that ‘Catherine’ – also the name of his late wife – is waiting for him there.