With “the farewell to national aspirations”, Kévin Petroni offers an interpretation of the texts showing how contemporary Corsican literature allows us to understand the evolution of Corsican village society.
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– I am above all a Bastian passionate about the history, literature, philosophy, arts, football and tennis of Roger Federer. I graduated with a Master’s degree in French Literature and Literature from the Sorbonne and today I teach literature at the College of Lucciana. I am also preparing a thesis that I will start next year at the University of Corsica. In addition to my university activities, I also run the Musa Nostra literary association with Marie-France Bereni-Canazzi.
– “Farewell to national aspirations”, what can you tell us?
– It is a course of reading around three Corsican novels of the contemporary period including The Sermon on the fall of Rome by Jérôme Ferrari, Murtoriu by Marc Biancarelli and Nos anges by Jean-Baptiste Predali. I try to show a journey of renunciation which is the common thread of these books, a renunciation of family life in the village, everything that in a way made up the Corsican tradition. First, the characters return to the village to realize their dream of living this idealized life during their childhood. Second step, it is the realization that the life in the village that they have fantasized so much does not exist because of the consumer society which has brought people down to the coast, changing the face of Corsican society as that it was until then. Third part: the choice. That of staying in the village and living in a deserted world, marked by economic and cultural misery, far from what it once was or leaving it and giving up.
The common point of these three books is that the goal of the narrator is to question the reader on the end of life in the village so that he tries to save him and his culture which is called into question by the modern consumer society. .
– Why this book?
-, I wanted to work on the crisis of rurality and I found that it was beautifully illustrated in these three novels, it clearly showed that villages were becoming a periphery of cities like everywhere in Europe. Behind rural life what would die was the whole conception of a people and its traditions.
– What message does it carry?
– I’m just trying to offer an interpretation of the texts and how literature allows us to understand how we go from one society to another.
– What audience is it aimed at?
– It is a university work therefore more for students and teachers but I tried to be as open as possible by popularizing my words.
– Where and when can we get it?
– In almost every bookstore in Corsica. It has been available since December 16 and a first print run of 500 copies has been made. To my surprise it is almost sold out but a restocking should be done soon.
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