“I don’t write activist books, I just bring my own water to the debate mill,” replies Arnaud Dudek when pointed out to him that after questioning municipal policy in “Leaving traces” in 2018, This time he is interested in bioethical laws, by approaching with “We sometimes make waves” the theme of artificial insemination, and the search for origins … Although the real subject of the last novel by the writer born in Nancy is finally , as in the previous ones, that of identity, transmission, filiation … “A theme that has inevitably fascinated me especially since I was a father”. No need to look for autobiographical traces between the lines, if this is not possibly in the love story or the professional quest allowing the writer to give more material to his character now in his thirties. Since “people are having children later and later and are now talking much more freely about their IVF attempts”, Arnaud Dudek only had to open his ears wide to put himself in Nicolas Apasagi’s shoes. This little boy who learns at 10 years and eight days that his father is not his father. Who blushes when his parents suddenly tell him a story of sperm not knowing how to swim and sinking before reaching “the Promised Land, et cetera”. It’s her mom talking while her dad nibbles his thumb. “We then call on a donor. A donor, she repeats, separating the syllables. “
–
His relationship to the father will change
Nicolas has just learned in Okapi that shocks called tremor can cause vibrations in the depths of the Earth, announcing a future volcanic eruption to who knows how to perceive them. “Lying face down behind the sofa in our typical middle-class living room, a volcanologist that day recorded a very nice tremor on his seismograph. “Because if Nicolas does not immediately understand why everything contracts in him at that moment, the fact remains that from now on, his relationship with the father will change … It’s insidious, and then wondering to whom we owe our nose or character, feeling different even when everything is going well in your family is something that tickles everyone at one point or another.
–
Already being adapted for the theater
So because he wanted “even people who are not affected by the subject of insemination to be able to be affected by this story”, it is with all the talent that we know him that Arnaud Dudek delicately juxtaposes little snapshots speak better than words. And with an unstoppable accuracy of tone that he manages to carry his reader away. Confiding in the actor Julien Pillot the care of soon doing the same with spectators. Because this novel calls for orality so well that it is already being adapted for the theater! And for good reason: before publishing “We sometimes make waves”, Arnaud Dudek had first started by writing a piece entitled “Biological genius”, noticed by several reading committees including that of the Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris. The Oculus company will put it together in the form of a monologue, and the director Sophie Maillard sees very clearly “the opportunity to give life and body to a sensitive and current text by a performance of actor in what it has of. more generous ”. Can’t wait for the curtain to rise!
“We sometimes make waves”, by Arnaud Dudek. 192 pages. 17 €. Ed. Anne Carrière.
–
–
