For this third text in the “Récits d’objets” collection, co-published with the Musée des Confluences, Céline Curiol has set her sights on an encryption machine, the same model as the one the Nazis used to encrypt their communications during the Second World War, and whose operation the English mathematician Alan Turing managed to decode, thus contributing in part to the Allies’ victory.
Imagining a young woman who, instead of the vintage typewriter she once ordered, is delivered an encryption machine whose operation she does not know before being contacted by high-level international authorities wishing to entrust her with a confidential mission, Céline Curiol builds an astute meditation on the place of secrecy in a contemporary society that increasingly encourages permanent unveiling. Between a dark novel and a sensitive reflection on the role of the museum and creation as intellectual stimulants, she launches a poetic and vital call for the creation of a worldwide archive of secrets, as an act of resistance to slow down existences.
