Citizen Boissel : historical dialogue in 9 scenes

Fiche technique

Format : Broché
Nb de pages : 135 pages
Poids : 183 g
Dimensions : 15cm X 21cm
ISBN : 978-2-87867-911-3
EAN : 9782878679113

Citizen Boissel

historical dialogue in 9 scenes

De Pierre-Antoine Courouble,

Chez Presses du Midi

Paru le 20/05/2008

Broché 135 pages

préface Jean Ferrat

préface Véronique Gagliardi

translation from french into english Frances Harper

Quatrième de couverture

Citizen Boissel

Forefather of socialism

It all starts when a student preparing her Ph.D in History comes to consult the town archives and hears about a peculiar individual who thinks he is François Boissel, a revolutionary writer of the 18th century, the forgotten forefather of socialism who was the forerunner of Babeuf and Saint-Simon. Intrigued by this curious person who personifies the very subject of her thesis, she decides to meet him to uncover the hoax. She rapidly becomes impressed by him. Her amused curiosity at the beginning slowly gives way to a fascination for this man whose thinking seems at once imprisoned in the past and yet astonishingly modern. She is left with a strange feeling of a rupture in space and time.

Who exactly has she met ? The village idiot, an eccentric artist, a great story-teller, a fascinating descendant, a reincarnation or a ghost ?

Biographie

Pierre Antoine Courouble was born in 1960 in Lesquin in the Nord department (north of France). He now lives in the Ardeche, in the south of France. After studying law, economics and educational sciences, he militated for ecology until around the year 2000 when he returned to his earlier passions, education and writing. A teacher and correspondent for the local press, he uses in this book the theatrical techniques that serve him well in History. The result is an astonishing play in which we meet « Citizen Boissel ». The book presents in an accessible and intimate way this forgotten philosopher and forefather of socialism who was the forerunner of communism, a pioneer of feminism and an ecologist in advance of his time, in short an 18th century writer whose idealism is both generous and universal.