Martina Chyba: “At 14, my son told me, speaking about Claude Torracinta, ‘Toto was your Jedi’”

Martina Chyba’s latest novel opens with a broadside against the decline of newspapers and the transformation of news kiosks into shops selling food and tobacco products.

“There are no newspapers anywhere anymore, not even in kiosks, which have become grocery stores selling ultra-processed foods that make people obese, and various things to smoke that cause cancer,” Chyba writes. “The press may sometimes give people hives, but that is still easier to treat. If people prefer to pay for what kills them, we are not going to feel sorry for them.”

The passage comes from Un rendez-vous particulier, Chyba’s latest autofiction novel, published by Favre last November. The journalist will sign copies at the Livre sur les quais festival in Morges this weekend.

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There are no newspapers anywhere anymore, not even in kiosks, which have become grocery stores selling ultra-processed foods that make people obese, and various things to smoke that cause cancer. The press may sometimes give people hives, but that is still easier to treat. If people prefer to pay for what kills them, we are not going to feel sorry for them.

Le Temps portrays Chyba as a writer who does not soften her judgments. If she is going to write a 288-page book and take up readers’ time, the article says, she might as well say out loud what many people think quietly, without filters or false modesty.

The headline also recalls a comment from Chyba’s son at age 14, when he described the journalist Claude Torracinta as her Jedi. The article presents the book as a tribute to the people, and to an animal, who helped make Chyba who she is.

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Toto was your Jedi!