His latest book With the fairies, in which he tells the story of his journey along the Atlantic coast, was released in bookstores on January 10. The same day, Sylvain Tesson learned that he would be the godfather of the next edition from the Spring of Poets which will take place from March 9 to 25. A nomination that raises eyebrows in the cultural world. In a violent forum published by Release, more than 1,200 poets and authors contest this choice, refusing that the event be embodied by a writer “established as a reactionary icon. »
For the signatories, including the writers Chloé Delaume and Nancy Huston or the Blast editions, the appointment of the travel writer as godfather of the Spring of Poets “reinforces the trivialization and normalization of the extreme right in the political and cultural spheres , and throughout society. »
“A leading figure of the literary extreme right”
They justify their position in particular by recalling that Sylvain Tesson “prefaced a reference work of the extreme right, The Camp of the Saints, by Jean Raspail”, a novel described as a “racist dystopia on immigration. » They also note that Sylvain Tesson “is a figurehead of this extreme literary right”, as the journalist François Krug denounced in his essay French reactions.
The nomination of the writer, who “embodies the trivialization of a reactionary ideology”, therefore goes “against the extreme vitality of poetry claimed by the Spring of Poets”, protest the signatories, who demand organizers to reconsider their decision. “If they take away our grace, we will keep our dignity,” they conclude.