French author Patrick Deville talks about Plague and Cholera amid COVID-19 pandemic

Deville was present in the city recently and he was engaged in a candid conversation with author-translator-publisher Dr. Sunandan Roy Chowdhury at the Oxford Bookstore  in Park Street.

When Chowdhury asked what prompted him to write Plague and Cholera, Deville said, "This book is a part of a very long literary project which I will count for 25 years. In the 20th century, I published five novels of fiction in a very special publishing house in France.

"The publishing house is small but very famous because it was created during the second World War. After the war, the publishing house became the house of a French literary school. When I wanted to write and publish books, I absolutely wanted to publish in that publishing house."

"From the 1980s to the end of the century, I published five fiction novels. Then I decided to change not only my work but was also looking for a new literary form for years," he added.

Patrick Deville in conversation with Dr. Sunandan Roy Chowdhury

In his works, Deville tours the world with his writer's quill and shares stories from around the globe.

When asked why he mentioned sea routes in his books, Deville told Dr. Roy Chowdhury he finds air travel boring.

"It was the second industrial revolution in Europe so it was a moment when the world was getting smaller because of the ways of travel," he said and added, "Often in the books, I give the time to travel (because) every 20 years smaller and smaller and smaller. Flying was not exciting. Traveling by boat was fantastic."

After graduating with comparative literature and philosophy, he served as the French Cultural Attache at the young age of 23 and debuted in the literary world in 1987.

Deville, as he said, opted for university education "to read".

"I went to University to read. I studied Comparative Literature and Philosophy but only on the pretext of becoming a writer," he said.