Thomas Bisquet will read Marguerite Duras to dictate the space

On Sunday, space and speech lovers were invited to take part in a massive dictation, which will be read by Thomas Pesquet in orbit and broadcast at the Air and Space Museum in Le Bourget, near Paris.

About 500 people of all ages, equipped with newspapers and pens, are expected to write, at the dictation of the astronaut, an excerpt from Marguerite Duras’ novel, Dam Against the Pacific Ocean, to identify the event’s organizers. And outdoors.

At 3 p.m., in the amphitheater of the exhibition where tables and chairs will be installed, a giant screen will broadcast a pre-recorded video of Thomas Pesquet, on a mission since April on the International Space Station, 400 kilometers from Earth.

“It was Thomas Pesquet who chose the classics of French literature,” novelist Rachid Santaky, founder of the giant dictation system, told AFP.

For eight years, the author of black novels (including The Angels Dress in caillera) has “taken dictation out of school” for rejecting it in unlikely places and making it a popular and “fantastic” exercise: he has read more than 500 texts in prisons, urban areas, and at the Stade de France, but also on social networks and radio.

“By following the spell in space, we will make people dream!” The writer is excited and eager to overcome the “shock” that some exercises at school can cause.

And the 43-year-old astronaut’s message abounds: “I really like the principle of irony – I hope – which is an exercise that has a bad reputation at times.”

Thomas Pesquet admits that he read Dam Against the Pacific, published in 1950, at the age of twenty.

After the first reading of the piece (about 700 bars), Rashid Santaky will deal with the second verse, in slow flow, before a self-correcting session.

The event will be broadcast on Saturday 11 September at 5 pm while broadcasting on France Culture.

joke / ah / sho