Arnaud Bertina

Arnaud Bertina
Period: 2004-2005
Profession: Writer Born in 1975, Arno Bertina was the author of two novels when he became a resident at Villa Medici:
Le Dehors ou la migration des truites (Actes Sud, 2001),
Appoggio (Actes sud, 2003), and a story,
La Déconfite gigantale du sérieux (Lignes/Leo Scheer, 2004), published under the pseudonym Pietro di Vaglio. In Rome, he worked on a novel,
Anima motrix (to be published in 2006 by Verticales), in which a certain Greco-Roman mythology collides head-on with the reality of refugees trying to reach Europe; to
” J’ai appris à ne pas rire du démon ” , a biographical fiction devoted to the singer Johnny Cash (Naïve, 2006); and to a strange and rare book,
Anastylose , which is like the trace of a friendship between four residents (the writer Bastien Gallet, the graphic designer Yoan De Roeck and the photographer Ludovic Michaux). Co-published by Villa Médicis and Editions Fage (Lyon) in 2006, this book unfolds the fascinating history of an ancient Roman monument (the Ara Pacis) and a neighborhood (Campo Marzio) through the contradictory, fanciful and outlandish discourses they have generated over the centuries. Since the end of his stay in Rome, he has written
Ma solitude s’appelle Brando
Devenirs du roman (Verticales, 2008) and worked extensively with the Inculte collective, contributing essays (co-publication Naïve/Inculte, 2006) and
Une année en France (Gallimard, 2007) with François Begaudeau and Oliver Rohe. Two other collaborative books were published in 2009:
La borne SOS 77 with photographer Ludovic Michaux (Le bec en l’air) and
Enorme (Thierry-Magnier) with the Tendance Floue collective. France-Culture has commissioned him to write dramas (
La relève des dieux par les pitres , for actress Agnès Sourdillon) and adaptations (
Sous le volcan by Malcolm Lowry, and
La conscience de Zeno by Italo Svevo). www.inculte.fr