His name was on all the French literary prize lists this fall. Goncourt. Medici. December. The rewards quickly followed. Le Monde Literary Prize. Les Inrockuptibles Prize. Blù Jean-Marc Roberts Prize. Then, crowning, the Femina, at the beginning of November.
Today, Neige Sinno is still in shock from the whirlwind into which she was drawn and the unexpected success of Triste tigre, which marked her resounding entry into the literary world even though she had been writing “in secret” for 25 years. . “The destiny of this book was so much beyond what I had imagined possible,” she says while in Montreal for a series of meetings and interviews around the Book Fair.
His greatest pride, however, is having managed to talk about his book beyond the “news story” that marked his life – the repeated rapes of his stepfather during his childhood in the French Alps.
Not once during our discussion did his voice falter. And yet, we feel the crack, vivid beneath the surface. Like an invisible scar. This is also why she did not want to write an autobiography. “Thanks to this form that I have found, I am not obliged to say everything about my life. This is how I protect myself,” she says.
Both an essay and a personal story, Sad Tiger is much more than a story of incest, in fact. But its unique artistic form made it difficult to publish, she says. “I had to convince myself that this failure did not correspond to the fact that what I was writing was not valid,” confides the writer who saw her manuscript rejected by publishing houses who did not know not rate it or didn’t want “another book about incest.”
Throughout the pages where the author reflects on what she has experienced, questions herself, questions her memories, she tries to understand how a human being can go beyond this fine line that separates good from evil. She attempts to explain what fascinates us about criminals and monsters. Dissects the mechanics of rape, emphasizing that it is more about power and domination than sex.
And little by little, she “deconstructs” her attacker. As she probes all the reasons she has for not wanting to write this book, it is no longer him who is at the heart of the story – it is her.
Throughout her quest, Neige Sinno searches for answers in her readings. His book is full of literary references that fit into his words or echo his thoughts. She cites Christine Angot as well as Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Jean-Paul Sartre, Virginie Despentes and Margaux Fragoso. Returns to Vladimir Nabokov’s famous novel, Lolita.
“I wanted to embrace with a certain casualness the fact that we think through others – even people who are not readers. I’m a big reader, so everything I think, when there’s a word that comes to mind, suddenly it takes me back to an author. »
Telling “the untellable” allowed him “to put language to things that cannot be said.” “To create meaning where there is none. » But she knows that literature will not save her. That she will never be completely free from what she experienced during much of her childhood. And that “this biographical material” could well return in his future writings.
As soon as the Book Fair is over, Neige Sinno will return to her home in Mexico, where she has lived for 18 years now. And in her little corner of Michoacán, she will continue what she calls her “writer’s trajectory.” “I prefer writing to speaking, and I find it hard to speak. But I can do it because I am strong. I know what it costs and I know that there are plenty of people who have experienced things like me who will never talk about it, even very articulate people. »And it’s because we gave her this microphone that she’s going to take it, she says with conviction.
