The father of Xavier Le Clerc is designated on the cover of a novel published on September 1 by Gallimard as Un homme sans titre. On the headband, we see this Algerian, Mohand-Saïd Aït-Taleb, wearing the tie.
“He was worthy. He was going to the factory dressed like that! Of course, he had to change, but that’s the image I keep of him, ”testifies his son.
Born Hamid Aït-Taleb, the novelist changed marital status between his first and second novels. He works as a recruitment consultant in the luxury sector in London, very far from the suburbs of Caen where he grew up and the misery of a campaign that Albert Camus denounced when he started out in journalism, and flees his father. .
This nuanced portrait of a Kabyle who arrived in Normandy in 1962 and died in 2020 is a tribute to his peers. For the good of others, of those who remained in the country, then of their children, they worked without hesitation.
“I talk regarding it in the book: he never rebelled. They were formatted to shave the walls,” says his son.
clandestine journey
Fanta Dramé’s father also lived for a long time with the fear of being sent back home, before obtaining a valid residence permit.
He belatedly narrated his clandestine journey in 1975, from a village in southern Mauritania, Ajar, to Paris, to his daughter, a young college professor in Pantin, near the French capital.
This gives Ajar-Paris, published in August by Plon editions. “He had never told us anything, his children. And I think I convinced him because he didn’t take me seriously, he didn’t think I was going to go all the way,” she said.
This father, who, following a career as a garbage collector, “culturally is still a Mauritanian” and speaks Soninké, will not read this first novel. “He has too many difficulties with French”, explains the novelist.
Yet it is this subject that she teaches. “In the Faculty of Arts, we feed this fantasy of being published. I wanted it. But I had no idea that the story of our fathers would interest so many people,” she wonders.
“The money that ruled you”
That of Mehtap Teke was no longer of this world when his daughter’s novel, entitled Petite, I said that I wanted to marry you (editions Viviane Hamy) was released in August.
A Kurd from Turkey, he would have dreamed of continuing his studies. His father saw him harvest cotton, like all his lineage. He left for Belgium to become a construction worker in Charleroi.
“He was very proud when he saw that my book was going to be published, he who had left a very poor background”, reports the author, interviewed by videoconference in Dubai where she works in communication.
When he arrived in an industrial city in crisis, in 1974, says the author, “he kept a low profile. He wanted to send money to his family and he didn’t count on luck, neither for him nor for us. He pushed us to have ambition. And I always wanted to write. I started”.
The novel reached its publisher by post. In the middle of the text, the young woman confides to this father: “You know, I hate the money that dominated you. I hate him more since I got him. »
Hugues HONORÉ/AFP
The father of Xavier Le Clerc is designated on the cover of a novel published on September 1 by Gallimard as Un homme sans titre. On the headband, we see this Algerian, Mohand-Saïd Aït-Taleb, wearing the tie. “He was worthy. He was going to the factory dressed like that! Of course, he had to change, but that’s the image I keep of him, ”says his son.Né…
