"Why do you write when you could be taking it easy, especially in the summer?": the Proust questionnaire by writer Irène Frain

Writers, musicians, actors, dancers, fashion designers, filmmakers... Throughout the summer, artists are taking part in this game for franceinfo Culture. Today, Breton author Irène Frain.

Irène Frain, born in Brittany, is a graduate of the classical literature program. A novelist, historian, and journalist, she has published nearly thirty books. Her first novel, about René Madec, a young Breton cabin boy who became a warlord in India, Le Nabab (1982), was a great success. The last book published : The Gold of the Night (Julliard, 2025).

Franceinfo Culture: This summer, are you more of a work or a nap person? ? Irène Frain: A mix of both : creative reverie.

On vacation, are you mountain or beach? ? North or south ? It doesn't matter, as long as I can live in the cool.

Let’s talk creation: are you a morning person or an evening person? ? The unconscious, father of creation, ignores years, seasons, days and hours. So the only answer that holds : 24 hours on 24.

Pen or keyboard ? Whatever comes to hand.

What is the book you still haven't read? Joyce 's Ulysses

Your best memory as a writer ? An extremely insightful exchange with a reader who revealed to me what had led me to write The Gold of the Night. Before this exchange, I had no idea.

Your nightmare ? Seeing my computer swallow one of my texts following a bug or a calamitous computer maneuver.

If you were a book, which one would it be? ? Homer's Odyssey .

What sentence changed your life? ? "Things change," Buddha's last words.

Which fictional characters have you hated? ? The ones I would have liked to invent.

And those who have always accompanied you ? The various avatars of myself who have invited themselves into my books without me knowing why or how.

What is the place where you are at home? ? In my little head.

What place inspires you? ? The divine paradise of sleep.

What is the question that horrifies you? ? "How do you write?"

And the one you've never been asked "Why do you write when you could be taking it easy, especially in the summer? "

Why did you choose this particular photo to accompany this questionnaire? I chose this photo in the strong Atlantic wind because it recalls my Breton origins and symbolizes for me the irreducible freedom of the writer, as well as the spirit that animates me in the current circumstances. : resist the surrounding chaos through writing and hold on at all costs.