“Ce que je sais de Monsieur Jacques”, tells the story of a teenage girl, Loula, as she moves from her birthplace to a tourist town, which she observes with immense curiosity. But, as she tries to come to getting used with her new environment, she discovers her neighbour, “Monsieur Jacques”, a strange and odd foreigner - according to the author, an expression of “the domination to which young people and teenagers are subjected”.

She explains why the novel is a “learning process”: “It doesn't just deal with one theme - in this case paedophilia - it's a work on language, that follows the real-life characters and presents them in all their authenticity. It is also a novel designed to raise the awareness of adults and children about the evil “which can appear to be beautiful and attractive, and about evil-doers who can be very friendly, like Mr Jacques in the novel”.

The story is also about ‘childhood and the way children see and experience society, questioning the position of adults in relationship to younger children’, because ‘as adults, we are always playing a role in society, and we all have a part to play, particularly in relation to children, who are much sharper than we think’.

When narrator ‘Loula’ finds her refuge with books and arts, she is addressing a social concern, that of making language into a social label, distinguishing between missionaries (students at the French mission), with whom she is in close contact, and those in need, who have never had access to an education and are not only poor, but also lack language and facilities for expressing themselves and for evolving’.

Like ‘Loula’, Leila Bahsaïn sees the writer as the witness who is “more aware than her fellow citizens of the uncertainties of life” and “assumes the responsibility of transmitting this awareness to the reader”.

Leïla Bahsaïn is the author of “Ciel sous nos pas”, winner of the Prix du livre Européen et Méditerranéen and the “Prix Méditerranée du premier roman” 2019, which has been shortlisted for a dozen literary prizes. After « La théorie des aubergines » (2021), « Ce que je sais de monsieur Jacques » is her third novel. Her books are published by Albin Michel.

CCME