Toulouse: Benoît Séverac, artisan of Roman humanity
The Toulouse author Benoît Séverac publishes his tenth novel, “The Painting of the Jewish Painter”, inspired by a story
family. The story takes shape in a true memorial and sensitive road-movie.
“It’s the novel slap in the face that fell on me when my Parisian aunt and uncle called me to tell me to come and collect some things before they left for nursing homes, including “the painting of the Jewish painter”. I did not know this story which had involved my grandparents during the war. They had hidden a Jew and, at the end of the conflict, as he got out of it, he came to bring them a painting to ask them. The affair then began, four years ago. The writing mechanic activates quickly. Benoît Séverac embarks on his tenth adult novel “The Picture of the Jewish Painter” (1).
The story, unknown to him, — “My grandfather was a silent, Protestant, Cévenol as he is described elsewhere in the novel…” — arouses interest and curiosity and, upon enquiry, the beautiful watercolor is signed Willy Eisenschitz (1889-1974), French painter of Austrian Jewish origin who fled the pogroms in 1936, found refuge in Paris and then hid in the South. “I started to imagine a fiction in which the painting is worth 100,000 euros and will change the life of a 52-year-old guy who is at the turning point of his life” Here is the author embroiled in the journey of his character, from Saint-Étienne to Israel via Toulouse then Spain: “When you have an idea, you have to go there, it didn’t work by traveling. I couldn’t write about Israel without having been there. I had to bring back some experience from Tel-Aviv so as not to prevent the prejudices or the good intentions that we normally hear. I couldn’t write what it’s like to look in the military archives in Ávila in Spain without going there, especially since there we dive into a heavy past, so we can’t talk just about anything. If only out of respect for people’s memory. »
“I am a freeloader, a looter”
The author makes no secret of his method: “I am a freeloader and even a looter, I come to get what I need for my novel and it stops there. Then I still keep an ear or an eye out for the question, but I move on to another topic. »
And, since the late 1990s, there has been no shortage of them. Short stories first, then dark novels as well as children’s novels, all marked by a naturalistic approach to human behavior, occupied his moments of break as an English teacher at the Veterinary School of Toulouse. “It’s a bit my paw, it corresponds to who I am. We must always ensure that the plot, in this case the investigation here, tends the novel without this being done to the detriment of the humanity of the people. This subtle balance requires a lot of returns to the workbench to balance and ensure that the character is not monolithic. »
“At the beginning when we write the plot of the book, the characters are still a little clumsy, it’s a kind of ball of clay that we have to shape little by little, but if we miss that the novel is messed up, even if we have a great story. The characters touch people, it seems to me, at least that’s how I write and that’s how you should read me. My interest as a writer is in the characters. »
Benoît Séverac has multiplied professional experiences (amateur actor, guitarist-singer in a punk band, judo teacher, co-founding member of Molars (international association of thriller bikers), wine taster from Alsace and the South-West, and sensitive artistic encounters.The latest, with the guitarist Jean-Paul Raffit, will result in a musical reading (2) adapted from this captivating book, “The Painting of the Jewish Painter”.
In a few dates
1966: Birth in Versailles
1984: Arrives in Toulouse for his studies and composes literary punk songs
1993: Teacher in Alsace
1999: Returns to Toulouse teaching at the veterinary school. writing news
2007: First publishing contract for “Les Chevelues”.