“My dog and I, a beautiful story of friendship”
The mountain writer achieved incredible success with His Smell After the Rain, a moving story about his relationship with his dog, a Bernese mountain dog. So who is this canine author?
Why this story dedicated to your dog Ubac?
Writing offers this rare and magical pleasure of finding the people you love, of spending a little time with them even though they are no more. This book is the opportunity for one last walk with Ubac! I knew I was going to write about our strong history, knotted in the mountains. Ubac taught me to be attentive to sounds and smells. He has wilded my days and enlarged my life.
You were a fan of White Fang and Buck, I suppose…
Yes! I grew up with all the windows open, galloping in nature, reading all the novels by Jack London and those where friendships were formed between men and animals. I have always been fascinated by this border between the wild and civilization.
Your Proust madeleine?
The smell of coffee when I walked down the creaky stairs of my childhood home in the morning, and the smell of dogs when I sat among them. My parents, PE teachers and nomads, did not have an animal, but there were always some around: those of the nanny, of friends, of neighbors… There is not a morning when I don’t think about those sparkling alarm clocks.
Music that makes you happy?
The one outside, when I open my window. As soon as the weather permits, I will listen to the forest, the rustling, the whispering. I like to sleep under the stars, abandoned to the cosmos.
What cause would you march for?
Acceptance of others. How can we consider crossbreeding as an impoverishment when it is an enrichment? Identity can bring us together, or tear us apart. You just need to be from a neighboring valley! But we have to take this step towards the other. Teacher, educator, I have always had confidence, on this subject, in this reserve of innocence of youth. But she is being attacked more and more…
Pope Francis grants you an audience. What do you ask him?
Atheist, I fled the chapels! But I have a permanent dialogue with what I call higher entities. If I met the Pope, I would ask him if these forces which surpass us could be something other than God…
We offer you immortality, do you sign?
If it’s to live in intensity and wonder, yes!