2023-10-14 20:00:00
One week, one book
Akira Mizubayashi lives in Tokyo and writes directly in French, a language he learned during his stays in France. After numerous linguistic publications, since 2019 he has devoted himself to three magnificent novels, the last of which has just been published with an evocative title: “Unforgettable Suite”.
Unforgettable, these three novels are. Without really being announced as a trilogy, they are run through the same theme, we could also say the same harmony, the love of music truly constituting their common denominator.
“Broken Souls”, the first novel, told the painful story of a Japanese child Rei Mizusawa, who had witnessed, hidden in a cupboard, the arrest of his father and his musician friends and the savage trampling of the violin of his father. – this by a soldier. In “Queen of Hearts” a talented young violist was sent to war and returned “with a broken soul”. These characters return in “Unforgettable Suite”, all these intrigues taking place at the same times: in 1945 in a Japan in complete disarray, and 70 years later in France where we find their descendants.
Rei Mizusawa became Jacques Maillard, an exceptional violin maker who managed to repair the famous violin that belonged to his father. He has a very gifted student “Pamina”, who works with him and helps him repair the “broken soul” (a piece so named) of a no less famous instrument, a cello by Matéo Goffriller created in 1712. A letter inside will help bring justice to young people cut down prematurely by an unfair war and reconstruct a very moving family story…
All the themes dear to the author are found there: hatred of war, broken destinies, impossible mourning, secrets, the importance of transmission, of memory, of all these values to which music and literature serve vector and expectation factor.
A novel constructed like a recital with chapters bearing the names of dances belonging to the “suites for solo cello by Jean Sébastien Bach” We slide, in perfect French, from one era to another, “from one dance to the other”, with all the delicacy of feelings and poetry dear to Japanese culture.
From our correspondent
Françoise Ramillon
1697335140
#Unforgettable #Suite #Queen #Hearts #Broken #Soul #Akira #Mizubayashis #trilogy