“Occitan is a global language”

“Beyond this recognition, I’m not particularly looking, it shows that Occitan is a universal language. It is neither bigger nor smaller than the other; it is, and that’s it.” Released in December 1997, re-released three times …

“Beyond this recognition, I’m not particularly looking, it shows that Occitan is a universal language. It is neither bigger nor smaller than the other; it is, and that’s it.” Published December 1997, reprinted three times (Reclams editions) and crowned in 1998 with the John Ponton Grand Prize for Occitan Literature, translated into English Published by Francis Boutle Publishers.

It has already been translated into French in 2000 (ed. Cairn) and in 2015 into Catalan (ed. Pages). An unusual rule for a book in the Oc language.

The work of researcher James Thomas

“It all started with the work of the British researcher James Thomas, who has been credited with publishing a collection of Occitan literature since the time of the Troopers. Asked to be sent.

He later found funding, a special grant thanks to the novel (John Ponton), and persuaded the publisher to publish his translation.

For this bite-sick man who came from Oran in 1961, it was a matter of pride that a family of dogs did not speak “a word of Bernays” when welcoming him. “When I was ten, I knew Spanish, a language very close to Occitan Gazcon,” he says.

“Learning is a Struggle”

“I learned to talk about it with my family and the farm boys I played rugby with, and then when I got to high school like everyone else I set it aside – because it’s a shame.”

Thanks to the Basque group he met on the university campus in Pau, he discovered, among other things, the works of linguists and writers. Robert Lafont. Here he was bitten to death.

He reads, reads (a lot), does internships, writes, and reads. From the rich literature of the XVII^e Century for XIX writers^e, And some contemporaries. “I had very bad language. Learn by heart Of a language, its idiomatisms, it is a barrier. But I have met many people who have helped me. “

He becomes an activist for the recognition of the Pyrenees language (he will be nationally responsible for immersion schools in Calantretas, Bernouis), in which he publishes About fifteen books, Collections of novels and poems.

In Shakespeare’s language, this translation “shows that oxytocin can be used not only for 19th-century farmers but also for postmodern work.^e .

His models, William Faulkner, Camus, Vargas-Losa and other Hemingway generally have a universal character, which is very relevant to him regardless of their language. Also, Sergei Javalovs admits it with a smile: “The last straw is English, I do not understand anything! “