The radio, he tells us, “was critically important.” And to quote the shows: “Bad genres”; “In a bare voice”; “A life, a work” (became “A whole life”) or “The Scientific Method”. And then, also, again and again on France Culture, “Les Pieds sur terre”. “I kind of feel like we’re doing the same job: bringing people’s existence to the surface. And this show is proof that everyone has something to say if they pay attention and take the time to listen. »

Also, when Sonia Kronlund, the producer, offered him this carte blanche, Nicolas Mathieu shared his pride and joy on Instagram. “I said yes right away, tells us the author of Their children after them (Actes Sud, Prix Goncourt 2018). It’s a show that is a way of accessing lives other than our own, and there are very few programs that do that as well. »

For the occasion, he wrote a short text, of which here is an excerpt: “We are at home, in the street, on an elliptical trainer or in traffic jams. For once, we listen, we won’t say anything. And this obviousness each time which becomes so sensitive. Everywhere, lives exist (…). The proof, 28 minutes of deep human voice, at least one novel per episode and this feeling each time of being part of it, of belonging to this same world, this single community. Lead like all of them, like each of them, this terrible adventure of existing. »

summer gift

Then we had to choose. Choose from twenty-one years of programming, ten shows: five broadcast on the air, from July 17 to 21 at 1:30 p.m., and available as a podcast like five others, as a bonus – a real summer gift. Nicolas Mathieu decided to “mix and match: I chose things that touched me and others that resemble my universe”. After Roubaix, Commissariat of Current Affairs, by Alain Lewkowicz (Monday July 17), will be rebroadcast The Roadside Restau de Vichy (18) then T’as wanted to see Vesoul (19), the report by Elise Andrieu in the city sung by Brel. It is therefore impossible not to think of his latest novel (Connemara, Actes Sud, 2022).

But it is perhaps the report by Morgane du Liège that most immediately refers to certain pages of Nicolas Mathieu. In Being 16 in the 21st century: life on two wheels, rebroadcast on the 20th, Marie and Mathilde, 16, do not have much to do in Ozoir-la-Ferrière (Seine-et-Marne). So, to beat the boredom and live a little stronger, they get on their backfiring machines: “It’s so good!” We feel the air… It relaxes. ” Then come back to memory, like a madeleine that would have the taste of gasoline and the scent of exhaust fumes, the sublime pages where Anthony and his motorcycle, in Their children after them, go to see elsewhere if the world is sweeter .

After this shoot of pure freedom, will be rebroadcast on Friday, July 21, When