He says the novel is not autobiographical: Echenoz has fun with the noir genre

“I hope this book isn’t autobiographical,” says Jean Echenoz with a laugh, referring to his latest work, Bristol, published by Adelphi. In the age of autofiction, it seems rare to find a completely fictional story. In this case, it’s the story of a semi-famous director of B-grade adventure films who is shooting L’oro insanguinato in Africa, based on a romance novel, and in the midst of creating the film, elephants, hostile militias and accusations of murder get in the way. Autofiction? “I’m not interested in it,” the 78-year-old French writer tells us, winner of the country’s major literary prizes, as he gazes out over the lagoon from Palazzo Diedo, where he is a guest of the Berggruen Institute. In recent years, he explains, “confession has spilled over into the concept of the novel”, but “I think it’s a phase, somewhat reminiscent of the 1970s when the novel found itself in a minority position compared to what was considered experimental literature, such as Tel Quel, and so on”. Meta-avant-gardism, “which some found interesting, but I didn’t find all that interesting”.

Echenoz tells us that he began writing when his role models were Patrick Modiano and Françoise Sagan, who poured a great deal of their personal experiences into their work – a period, the 1970s, he says, that was ‘highly theoretical’. It was also to counter this that Echenoz, as an aspiring novelist, began to “play with so-called ‘minor’ genres – that is, espionage, adventure, crime fiction, historical novels… and this sense of plot has stayed with me”.

He has dabbled in romantic comedy and war novels, and with *Bristol* he has fun with the noir genre, adopting a somewhat surreal tone and a healthy dose of irony, in the style of a *comédie*, as he puts it. It is no coincidence that the book was translated by Giorgio Pinotti, the champion of Gadda’s work, our pre-eminent comic author. The ironic side, says Echenoz, “unfortunately comes naturally to me. When I imagine certain situations, even painful ones, I feel the need to distance myself. That distance inevitably creates irony, a sense of play. But we writers cannot lay claim to humour; if we do, we lose it, a bit like with elegance”.

Is the novel dead? We hear this said often. “The novel is not dead,” Echenoz is certain of this. “We’ve been saying this for centuries. But the novel is such a solid, necessary and enduring form that I don’t understand why we should abandon it. We need fiction. At least I need it, and so I imagine others do too.” For him, Jacques le fataliste is the first true novel in history. He notes that cinema, particularly for Bristol, has exerted a considerable influence, including on the treatment of scenes and the visual dimension. “The novel draws on cinema, but when cinema draws on the novel, the results are often dreadful. And then, paradoxically,” he explains, “cinematic editing was already present in certain literary works before cinema came into being. Flaubert invented editing!”

There is concern about books and reading, and reports are emerging of literature students at university who are unable to complete the classics. “It’s not a false alarm. But this, too, is a concern I’ve been hearing for over forty years,” says Echenoz. “But precisely because I’ve been hearing it for forty years, I believe it’s true, and that we’re about to move into a new era for books,” though what that might be remains unclear. Of course, even in the face of the 2027 presidential elections, he doesn’t feel optimistic. “I’ve never been an optimist and I’m not about to start now,” he adds with a laugh. And can writers do anything? “Carry on working in their own little corner. I don’t believe in the power of the writer, other than the power to create something interesting for readers. Then, of course, there are writers who take part in public life, but they overestimate their status a little.”