Pierre Hanot

Aux vagabonds l’immensité

To the Wanderers the Immensity

May 28, 2020

Novel

224 pages

120 × 200 mm

15,90 €

978-2-3588-7618-6

July 23rd 1961 is a night of retaliation, a night when the dogs are let loose. Later it will be called “Night of the Paratroopers”. For a few hours, Metz will be on fire and blood, barbarian. Because for months the FLN has been organizing there. Because the paratroopers are bored and need action. Because the Algerian war resounds here and because the French and Arabs are watching each other suspiciously in a climate of constant racial tension. And that night the fate of the anonymous people that Pierre Hanot has decided to look into is at stake: there are hopes and deveins, room mates, conversations at the factory, evenings at the dancehall... Little things that make up these lives of 1961, upset that night by the blows of History.

The author

Pierre Hanot was born in 1952 in Metz, France. Happy childhood in spite of polio which will leave him after-effects to a leg, more tormented adolescence during which the discovery of the surrealists will be his May 68. In turn poet, mason, backpacker, English teacher, song-writer, singer and guitarist, he took music hostage in the 70s, accompanied by his group, the Parano Band. Thirty-five years of rock’n’rollesque adventures and concerts followed, including more than 200 in most French prisons, an unusual approach which impacted on his funk-blues and forged his urban poetry.
A man of convictions, in 2005 he recounted this unique experience in Rock’n taules, a tale hailed by unanimous critics. Devoting himself to the novel, he joined the world of crime fiction and noir, winner of the Erckmann-Chatrian Prize in 2009 for his opus Les clous du fakir published by Fayard. Another universe, the art of collage, which Pierre practises in complete freedom, scripting his works within event-driven and interactive exhibitions.