At the Nice Book Fair, at the beginning of June, Anne Goscinny was metaphorically wearing a double hat. That of author for adults, just published Romance (Grasset, 200 pages, 17.50 euros, digital 13 euros); in this capacity, she has, she says, signed “forty books” – which is more than honorable. That of a youth novelist, « mother” of Lucrezia, the preteen in 6e whose adventures she tells, illustrated by Catel, for six volumes (each containing ten stories).
In Nice, Anne Goscinny dedicated it “more than a hundred” copies, to little girls who “had already read the whole series”. Since the launch of the first volume, in March 2018, of these stories aimed at 8-12 year olds, 250,000 copies have been sold – ” At this stageemphasizes Thierry Laroche, editorial director of comics and children’s literature at Gallimard, it goes far beyond the successful launch, it is a success that took to the playgrounds. »
“Why don’t we do something for kids?” »
For a long time, however, Anne Goscinny forbade herself from even thinking about children’s literature, to which her father, René (1926-1977), gave The little Nicolas, drawn by Sempé (who has just died). She had a strong argument: “You don’t try opera when you’re Mozart’s daughter”or the variant : “In the game of comparisons, we always lose. » Yes, but. There was the meeting with the designer Catel Muller, known as Catel, which led them to design together The Roman des Goscinny (Grasset, 2019), drawn biography of the brilliant René, told by his daughter, who was 9 when he died.
For this project, the two women spent days talking. It was in this context, working and then going on vacation together, that Catel discovered that the one whose books she admired “dark” for adults was “actually hyper-funny in life”. The observation led him to ask the writer this question during the summer of 2016: “Why don’t we do something for kids?” » The author of Sound of keys (Nil, 2012) sends him back his verse on Mozart. “But the idea is gaining ground. »
And, the following September, one morning, Catel finds, in her mailbox, three stories that Anne Goscinny had written in her bed, leaving her imagination “to unleash “. They feature a little 11-year-old Lucretia. The illustrator is enthusiastic about what she reads, suggests the idea that the child’s family could be recomposed rather than “traditional”, and live in a house rather than an apartment. And here are the two women embarked together in The World of Lucretius. The kid has a first name that Anne Goscinny’s husband had suggested when she was pregnant with their daughter, Salomé. Which Salomé gives her big eyes, her small nose and her brown hair (the same as her mother) as well as her dimple in the chin (the same as her grandfather René) to the heroine. Catel’s daughter, Line, is also entitled to her homage, the three unfailing friends of Lucrèce, Aline, Pauline and Coline, being designated as “the Lines”.
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