Literature will keep us awake

Camille de Toledo, writer and film-maker, was born in Lyon in 1976. Author of a much acclaimed essay, Archimondain Jolipunk (Calmann-Levy, 2002), he advances a new aesthetic, the reverse of cynicism and derision. In 2004, he undertook his “Artifical Tetralogy”, which paints a picture of the world on the edge of imitation: uprooted people, jeux de double, permanent interaction between life and fiction. Two of the four books planned have been published by Verticales: L’inversion de Hieronymus Bosch and Vies et mort d’un terroriste américain. In October 2008, he published an essay with PUF, Visiter le Flurkistan ou les illusion de la littérature monde. This audacious text is a critique of the ‘Manifesto by 44 Writers for World Literature’.