I dont see how that strategy will be successful very critical. To sit down and talk. As a financial survival. Lets learn to love lets say im the troika and youre. Greece the fight 9 well street spot thank you for. The story thats true if you looked at slavery. Hello and welcome to sophie cohen visionaries im Sophie Shevardnadze they call him the old fall of the French Literature for his no mercy approach to the evils of the modern society and asking them what some are thinking and where and. Satire today i talked to writer literally create a t. V. Presenter and film director i do take. It if i go back there its really nice to have you with us todays been a while we wanted to have an interview with you but a chance that youre here in moscow so i want to start with back with your collection thats a new project thats going to come out in 6 months its sort of a compilation of french writers youre not a neat youre a producer or an editor of this thing and its supposed to talk its supposed to show the french way eternal matters and i correct exactly what it is matters yeah its a crazy idea is that russian writer famous. Of to ask me to choose my favorite books of contemporary writers and put my name on the cover instead of theirs but no i will i will ask that my name is smaller than the name of the author its just that we present my favorite novels of the last 10 years. So no voters about yet today about the the the world how its changing so quickly and so we really. Were working on the list were working on the translations we didnt choose everything but very glad and i think its a beautiful idea because we need ideas to. Put closer our 2 cultures france and russia were very close in the 19th century and now less crazy nations like you that much to crazy. Anything anyway in a good way we like to criticize everything relate to complain we are subjective we like parties we like to go out we like seduction yeah you like beautiful woman russian men like beautiful woman. How about but do i understand correctly that in this new book thats coming out its going to be only french writers or i cannot tell you definitively because were working but i hope there will be 2 american novels that i loved recently but the problem is we didnt sign the contracts yes yet so its possible that the books that i want to translate are already sold to another Publishing Company so im asking because like to me and for many people who who know a little bit of french culture you are as french as they get as a character as a writer like you very french but for those who arent familiar with the French Literature and french culture i figured like you were choosing french writers in your book so that they would show the french way french point of view on life in general what makes in your own words. French literature french says the language. Well. The pleasure the fact that we like we like a certain way of life. Not too crazy about working all day long but more you know taking time to eat drink. Beer and sex has no sarcasm i remain so yes yes yes a way of you know we exist. Criticizing the power or kind of powers not accepting taboos exactly exactly fighting for freedom. So you know that in this world that is changing so fast may be france is one of the places trying to resist. This change you know to stay to. Have a certain quality of life thats thats very. Good that you say that because ive been observing everything that is going on after. After the bet that khloe and i mean when Something Like this happens no matter how safe you feel afterwards life just cant be the same its lake exactly can be the same but somehow french people just managed in your face to just continue living the way they lived like many other people would have closed down you know its very its very true is very interesting because you know most school is changing ive is the 1st time i come since a few years and i saw a saw a real change because there was this huge city party you know so everything was closed and everybody was outside it was very sunny the weather was beautiful and there was a lot of crowd into streets but not only because of these. Concerts but because of there are lots of terrorists outside cafes people who take a glass of wine sitting in the street this didnt exist 20 years ago i dont remember seeing russians they exist with tables and chairs in the street taking time to drink a glass of wine so what im saying is the power regime way of life now is russian so this is cool and this is very good news because this is the way of life that was attacked on november 25th in berries not only about that but people are just sitting outside having a drink. This way of life is considered a crime by some people who want to kill because you deserve death when you have a drink so you know where if most cool people are sitting outside having a drink its a political gesture its resisting you know its its cool its fun its nice but its also very important morally and politically its important to talk to me a little bit about how that resistance is protected in the literature in the modern literature and i want to talk about French Literature of the National Character because its something that interests me very much for instance the way the french perceive French Literature and the people outside france is very different like for instance destiny esky that everyone greets from i dont know paris to mexico city theyre convinced that this is a genius who embodies the russian psychology but for people at home this is a genius a guy with enormous talent who is just very weird and has nothing to do with National Psyche chel i mean really when you when you write books that you think are french or you choose your writers to be french. How do you mean the difference between what really is french and the stereotype that people have for french is you know im not really that clever because when they when they choose a book i just choose a book that made me laugh or cry or make me angry or just shook me provoked at the valley and created a reaction so it doesnt mean im not thinking well does book please the russian or the french people i just react in a way that i think oh this guy is great this is great i want to translate it i want to transmit this virus to foreign readers why not but i dont mean i dont say or i think your question is excellent but if you are you are maybe too intellectual for me a little material is very simple it does too yes good sometimes makes me cry i dont really analyze why. Its true that for example the last of the with all his contradictions you know hes like totally tortured inside and he is in the end he finds a sort of redemption and for us french people we we think all russians are like these tortured people that find a solution to their problems or people who drink too much or people who gamble to merge and finally maybe there is an issue because they find god for example or you know what im doing something really simple to this isnt a very deep i mean summing up just to your skin one sentence its not really easy but. When youre a foreign you know you look at russians like this you think these people they have many temptations of many kinds of money fame i dont know beautiful girls or you know killing yourself with drugs and alcohol. But then the turn to something more beauty for we can be nature it can be family or you can be god or routine i dont know but anyway. Its good when you ease a treat its a treat its not youre not the same at the end of the book as you were when you started the book. Now that youre editor would you please myself lately read yourself for the 1st time. I have to think about these take it because im always very very. Mean to myself so maybe i would say these who you see are original bustard no i mean i dont really love what they do more with would love to correct my old books you know and when i reread myself i am ashamed so i dont know if i would publish me but its important to be able to. Others when you when youre right you dont write exner hilo you always write from somewhere from the love of the great books that you have read when you were a child or a listened and so for me its important to a. Young writer as new writers but for my set of im very very severe cannot pick you might find this question deep but i think its like a really important question because youre a writer and this is your bread this is this makes you leave in your family do you feel like books today and writers today are supposed to actually tell people how to leave because like in the old times thats what it was we didnt have media wouldnt have internet like you only had religious texts or writers so you would take a book and oh i should do these or i should behave like these are my problem solution is here what about now do you feel like what will be one books in general. Which in general is something that they say to their to question in your question because. Now there is a trend of you know of manual of Self Development you know many writers and many readers think that you do not your is. Its thing that has to show you and tell you how to live and they dont like that i i think there is a mission in little too but its not exactly that its when you read all those stories of millions of stories it helps you to know how to love how to accept aging how to behave when something horrible happens because you have read all those stories and you you know maybe youre prepared for death of someone you love for example or you know catastrophes like that so i dont im thinking its not Self Development its not a writer telling you how to live but in a nother way in a strange mysterious way they teach us how to. How to live in a different way so thats what my answer i dont know if its too complicated no its actually very deep youre telling me youre not deep enough youre actually neurosurgeon and there really is and there isnt a mission i see in in novels. Because we are in a world where there is a lot of images television your phone. And not enough time for yourself and when you read a book you turn off your computer return of your smartphone you turn of the t. V. And you are with yourself and with the sort of of the writer its this miracle. This. Is very important i think and this is only in books you dont have this anywhere else and there were. Every day because people read less. Will continue talking to. Us. Here is the economy or china has caught up or surpassed the mobile Payments Market 50 times the size of the us or over here still writing checks Banking System is not innovated. Recently was going up the last couple years and go wow we dont even have a company that can make. Its been a win win for china and its been a lose lose for the us. And were back with. You since youre saying that you know books is the only way to another persons soul or to your soul lets talk about the eternal life i mean youre saying you dont take yourself too seriously and youre very critical of what you write but i mean the title the turner life is something that so many people before you have. Just in simple words what have you find out about immortality that all this philosopher as writer scientist happened before you that science now is close to really changing mankind and this is he said never happened before the so the situation now of our species homo sapiens is that. Its scientists doctors in china in america in russia. Everywhere working on improving. Us as. You know so this is new this is really very strange immortally dont know life is the most. Subject of you dont have to the 1st novel ever found. Maybe 3000 years ago is going to get measured the story of a guy who doesnt want to die so and then you have jesus who talked about the term of eternal life and then you have hundreds and thousands of books dorian gray frankenstein. You know many many books talking about these the only thing that i did in my little one is i met many scientists all over the world that are really actually working on how to make us live longer would you want that for yourself if you had a choice between these healthy good looking happy. With a family find a better way than you getting old gradually and seeing your kids grow or stopping or living 5 by 500 years. 1501550015 extension 0 we almost cant do it now because. I was almost the stage even though there is debate about. But. Well i answer in the book that if its possible to save the lives of all the people i love and stay healthy and you know good looking then when not when no way refuse it but because we all were already have changed. In the middle ages we would be dead now after 25 or 30 you are dead now we can live 66070 or 80 years or so we have doubled. The length already we did it so its possible to double again maybe triple and maybe we would love it. But what are the conditions what is the price to pay thats the question and thinking and doing didnt like the idea of actual immortality scary but if you think about immortality the obsession of human kind of being in the right decision and since forever thats the driving force behind everything good literature Philosophy Technology science i mean if we actually it seems that its almost like theres no evolution isnt like were like different rates were not human these are more exactly you you said the answer the problem is if we succeed we will not be humans anymore and thats where doesnt bother you no no it worries me no no it worries me i like to be a human limited person with desires that are impossible to satisfy no no but. Really when they when they talked with all these scientists especially in harvard medical school. I understood that if we if to become eternal we have to become partly robots sparkly mutants you know we have to become creatures like in. Iraq or you know all those superhero movies then i dont think i want i dont think i want i dont want to be. Algorithm or you know i dont want to be fuzzy and. So were talking about the Human Evolution but literature like anything else like a living organism also evolves and youre saying people are reading less and less you have 3 kids ive heard you say somewhere they dont read they chat with their friends on the internet mostly. Little ones because its very young to do and to have a portable phones and theyre going to fight im good i hope im gonna fight but with my 20 year old daughter i lost the better completely when she was 13 but this its scary like do you feel like youre part of a dying breed because people arent going to read anymore no she reads she reads but you know she doesnt read what they tell her to read and thats normal thats normal. But she does read and i think the they have a new way of using language and writing because they spend a lot of time on social media but theyre writing it is writing even though they use too much smileys. But so. I dont know if i understand this next generation and they think its normal its just because im an old guy but do you think about whats going to happen to books in literature for instance with t. V. And visuals like before when you meister at 3 musketeers it would be one chapter every week and then people would wait for it like cliffhangers and then you have h. B. O. Not. It isnt exactly the circular thing and the stuff they do is good it is a good doesnt take you for a fool it digs really good stuff its actually like nearly richard do you feel like for you yes replace a you totally and you know as nova least we cannot compete with you know such great work. So one. Hope is that you do that you will find new ways to become interesting again and its not storytelling to tell only a story its much better to be breaking bad. Shows like that are so much efficient and you know theyre there such in fact game of thrones but. You hasnt no other way to say to attract and seduce style emotions something deeper like meeting someone who has to same problems you have or someone telling his life with maximum honesty taking the dying. I said you know you have to turn off everything be with yourself sitting in a chair maybe with a glass of old risky and youre suddenly we sign and solitude you have access to something superior maybe superior to cinema and Television Even great shows its Something Else makes you feel very human and. So thats what im fighting for now but it must also somehow affect the storytelling there now because its only a sense if x. Is late were doing this we read books to have stories we read books for Something Else one of the books i want to translate in russia is a. Gas station its called the gas station and for 200. 00 pages youre only in these gas station and the guy who is you know a cashier. Hes taking notes looking at the clients looking at the cars smelling the smell of burning the toy that hes killing the nature around hes just taking notes there is no story its just observe ations of every day people are coming to disgust ation and i think this is kind of the future of reach for novels more of the racial rather than stories or of the details you know and making you understand the world and look at the world look at ordinary things like theyre not normal you know everything you think is normal is just mad. So youre saying storytelling is so much better done now on t. V. That you should i think we know where there are things that still are incredible stories in. Thank god there are but its its a difficult back to and i would i would choose to fight in another field. So you dont see yourself as a stereotype for minorities or you for example no i dont think im really a storyteller i think i do partly autobiographical books and partly because i get to know satire to make people laugh about advertising or about models but so i never really been incredible story or you know something really completely original like like the great writers i love i know i know im not in this get to go here and it doesnt bother me but ive heard you also say once that you know you have to be somewhat not depressed like on the down side to actually write a book when everything is going to just want to have a drink i hear you on that one. But out is it really like that though stephen king said that life is not supposed to be a life support for the art its dead the way around us very often yeah great boy its so great out. Such people that have a i dont know they had problems when they were young do the goes you dont want to kiss them so they wanted to become a genius yes its true and then now that im mostly happy its a problem and ive noticed that. Some of my latest books written when they was hoping are very sad and so maybe when i write now i have a happy life but when i write i become. Depressed again its strange a strange thing to write i put myself in the states where i was when i was frustrated and angry other listened. So i go back to this to these. This hate that they had inside my said to not hate but the rage the rage to to to to to put this sentence on paper. To imagine like if you have to choose because your sake im almost almost all the time happy right now right and thats a good thing so if you had a choice to leave that happy life. And never ever write a book because you cant write when youre happy or actually become unhappy to write i think on the 1st one i think 1st i think there have been as of course i think the happiness no no no i dont want to go back to to the you know misery and 1000000 couldnt. But maybe when i go out and get really wasted its because im looking for this state and of very late when the. Lonely. And destroyed so maybe thats the solution to drink too much well it looks to me like youre kind of perfect harmony between the taste so good luck with everything thank you very thanks for this time please. This idea as you point out the anecdotally cheney fired all the cia agents in the field because they were too sympathetic to the locals and he felt that was a liability in the major media spheres of washington d. C. They dont want those reporters those stars to rub elbows in the great unwashed of the flyover states because they may become sympathetic to the working class they may become sympathetic to the to the disenfranchised of america. Most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the 1st one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest raid in truth to stand down the News Business you just need the right questions and demand the right answer. Questions. This sars headline stories the united states. Top military commander in an Early Morning or a strike in iraq provoking threats of retaliation from tehran and its ally militias. Also ahead police in the french capital shooting dead a knife wielding after hes one person to death 2 others. From the Turkish Parliament decision to deploy troops to libya comes in for strong criticism of israel cyprus fear it will lead to a further escalation in the region