Author of “Elegance of the Hedgehog” returns with new novel – The Universal

The French Muriel Barbery ensures that writing her new novel, The life of elves , was like walking in a dream, a feeling that takes the reader in this work in which genres intermingle and where, he says, to unleash “the wildest imagination.”

After selling six million copies of The Elegance of the Hedgehog , who wrote nine years ago, Barbery today presented in Madrid The life of elves , published by Seix Barral, where he meets, through its two protagonists, two girls, with part of the enchantment of childhood.

“permanently I am seeking to find a form of enchantment that is characteristic of that age. With my years and I lost much of my but innocent attempt, through my characters and my text, rediscover some of that enchantment of life, “he said in an interview.

Mary, a girl who lives in a remote village in Burgundy and Clara, another girl sent to Rome to develop his prodigious gift for music have seemingly little in common, but between them they have a secret link, get in touch with the world of elves, a world of art and harmony with nature that provides the life of men depth.

And only they, together, can deal with a threat that hangs over humanity.

Life of elves is “the first part of a binomial” said the French author, which would like the second was very different.

As much different is its previous novels, in particular his successful The Elegance of the Hedgehog : “When you have had such a success, why play it ?. Has no sense. I can do what I want and that freedom I love, “Barbery said.

He explained that it is hard not to feel the pressure after having been so successful because” when a book gives many pleasures readers understand who want to meet you again, but the script does not work well, “he said.

He admits that the impression he had written was” making progress in a dream in different parts appearing and that were articulated not sure how “which is the state trying to achieve when it is dedicated to literature,” a state at a time of total abandon and intensity as you can be dreaming. “

The Gardens of Kyoto Japan, where he lived two years, and calling them “Elvish” sparked the idea for this novel, in which he speaks of beauty, nature, art.

But put the elves in Japan was “a disaster” so that, on returning to his French countryside, decided to acclimate the novel in this land, where he spent his childhood and adolescence.

This period of his life in the “made nest She said me the love for the landscape and the people who inhabit the earth. Also in French literature I like many authors speak of link people to the field, with the strength of the earth and I join in that tradition, “he said.

Although it has paused after this first part, because you need to “seek, absorb and digest”, said end of the second attempt, in which there will be a war, “as quickly as possible.”

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