Yannick Haenel

Yannick Haenel
Period: 2008-2009
Profession: Writer Born in 1967. Childhood in Black Africa. Three years at the Prytanée Militaire de La Flèche. Studied literature, agrégation, teaching for some fifteen years. Left everything to devote himself to literature. Hosted the magazine
Ligne de risque. Writes novels, including
Cercle (Gallimard, 2007);
and essays, including
Prélude à la délivrance, with François Meyronnis (Gallimard, 2009). Spent the first six months of his stay at the Villa Médicis writing a novel:
Jan Karski. Will devote the remaining six months to a book on Aeneas, Rome, war, the gods, labyrinths and sacrifice; and an essay on the paintings of Cy Twombly.
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A writer is someone who makes himself available to availability itself. Who seeks the word in the word. Who, at every moment, detects “unheard-of leaps of harmony”, as Rimbaud put it. Perceives time and space in terms of ecstasy. Thinks that we are bound to the impossible. Seeks to abstract itself from the horizons that enclose it. Not to be absorbed by the community. Seeks out grappling hooks, social integration, the will to be right. Believes in nothing, and knows how to say yes. Never tries to dominate. Lets be. Affirms that poetry and thought are one and the same. Lets her loving body speak in her sentences. Tries to give new meaning to the word “jouissance”. Doesn’t care about respectability. Feels refractory. Favors distance in human relations, and also improvisation. Lives at an angle, on the edge, and enjoys the slightest breath that expands his freedom. Trusts only in joy, concentration and tenacity. Merging his way of living, writing and reading into a single ruse that imperceptibly distracts him from timetables. Welcomes epiphanies. Conceives every encounter as a labyrinth. Tries to remain faithful to the ethics of the labyrinth. Believes that Eros is the divinity of writing; and that spiritual combat is merciless. In a sense, seek a path between the Tora and the Tao. Is neither avant-garde nor classical. His body refutes the new as much as the old. Prepares his sentences as a collection of nuances as much as an act of guerrilla warfare. He is not intimidated by the unbearable, nor does he fall in love with his own limits. In everything, he is both the knife and the wound. Rather cold than sentimental. A deserter at heart. Loves the chivalry of Chrétien de Troyes, the Venus of Nicolas Poussin, and the elegance of Glenn Gould. Likes silence, but also tumult. Puts solitude as high as love. Makes itself available to prodigies, to lightning, to dazzlement. Takes advantage of every experience as an opportunity for vertigo. Experiences happiness even in the terror of the spirit. Devotes himself night and day to the point from which sentences come. Try not to be a prisoner of reason. Goes into metamorphosis, in order to split the rock. Roam the satanic realms as much as the kingdom of God; and love to laugh at both. Perceives the rumor of crime in most actions. And sees eroticism in forms that don’t yet exist. Occupies no social position, no position of power. Loves music and gestures above all else. Wanders, experiments with nothingness. Studies the contents of darkness.