Writer Guillaume Musso, number one in sales in France every year since 2011, plans to take a break from publishing a new novel every year, he told RTL.
In an interview broadcast by radio on Wednesday, he indicated that he did not have a novel in the process of being written which could be published in 2023. “For the first time, I arrive in January without having a book in progress”, a- he declared.
“Which means that 2023 may be a blank year. After, you know, an idea for a book can fall on you, like that, and all of a sudden have an emergency, ”he conceded.
A “refocusing” on his family life
Asked about the reasons for this break, he argued “a refocusing for a few years on both my family life, on my children, my parents”.
“My great source of joy today, I owe it to my children. I know this won’t last. They are nine years old, they are five years old. For me the worst, to have missed your life, is to arrive at a moment and say to yourself: oh well, I did not see my children grow up, ”he added.
He plans to release the comic book adaptation of “The Secret Life of Writers”, his 2019 novel, in October, with American Miles Hyman drawing it.
1.383 million copies
Guillaume Musso, 48, sold in 2022 according to the GfK institute 1.383 million copies of his books, all titles and formats combined. His next, Joël Dicker, sold less than a million.
Before the publication in September of the latest, “Angélique”, fourth best seller of 2022 according to GfK, he confided to AFP that he did not see this annual rhythm, followed relentlessly since 2005, as a constraint.
“It’s not one. That, really, is more something that is a factor of balance in my life than of constraint (…) It is not a contractual constraint, really, ever. There is no editor who said to me: ah, it would be good if you did one novel a year”, he explained.