Philippe Boxo contextualises the writing in the trenches in an enlightening way: “The war of 14, it’s the first time we have a war where soldiers are capable of writing. Education was mandatory. They wrote letters, by the way, with one of those calligraphies that we no longer find today. It was very beautiful literature, a form embodied by Mr. Everyone. The nobles were not the ones sent to combat. The nobles, they were in the rear.” The forensic doctor therefore wonders why Violaine Lison focused on these specific letters.
Violaine Lison expresses the immense poetic beauty of these writings: “What struck me was the beauty of the language. I am more of a poetry person. So, right away, I found myself in friendly terrain, as if it were my country, in this language of Leon. I felt drawn to it, because it’s a text that talks about war, but it also talks about nature, birds. And he is a farmer’s son, he knows the landscapes like the back of his hand. And then, there is this incredible love story that he tells.”
The two authors share and meet in their similarities and differences, for an unexpected conversation: they confess, both speak with the dead.
Listen above to the full interview in the special episode podcast, “En avant, Belges.”
