The least we can say is that the French writer François-Henri Désérable has the gift of being in the right place, at the right time.
Last year, he found himself in Iran “at the height of the repression” against the popular uprising.
That is to say, a few weeks after the death of Mahsa Amini, killed by the Iranian authorities because she had violated the dress code for women under the mullahs’ regime.
“While I was on the plane from Frankfurt to Tehran, I received a call from the ministry’s crisis unit [français] Foreign Affairs. They told me: “Mr. Désérable, give up your plan to travel to Iran, you face a very high risk of arrest and arbitrary detention, we have several of your compatriots behind bars. If they arrest you, you could spend months, if not years, in their jails and there is nothing we can do about it.” »
He didn’t listen to them.
This is the reason why this ex-hockey player, who fell in love with literature and travel, is here before me today, on a promotional tour for his essay on Iran entitled The wear and tear of a world.
This is also why I write that this 36-year-old Frenchman – who has the look of a student rather than that of a professional hockey player – was in the right place, at the right time.
He was able to tell us what was happening in Iran at the time. And particularly in the minds of the Iranians, because he increased the number of conversations with them.
His testimony is precious.
“Iranian journalists who covered the protests were put in prison and Western journalists were no longer issued visas. It is precisely because I did not have a press card that I was able to obtain a tourist visa,” he explains to me.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Our columnist with François-Henri Désérable
It seemed to me that it would have been a lack of courage to turn away at the last moment and stay at home when I had the chance to bear witness to what was happening in Iran.
François-Henri Désérable
François-Henri Désérable is also touring Quebec at the right time. He had been planning for some time to come here in October to talk about Iran… and here he comes as the country once again plays a leading role in the hot news.
As the sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran is one of the key players in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We want to know more about this country. And that’s good, because the writer has a lot to say.
I wanted to know what game he thinks Iran is playing. His answer is simple. The objective of the mullahs’ regime is “the preservation of power, which involves permanent destabilization of the region”.
I remind him that on the day of the Hamas assault on Israel, October 7, it was reported that two huge banners were displayed in the Iranian capital, Tehran, to celebrate the event.
“I’m not sure the Iranian people are happy with what happened in Israel. They know very well that it is the Pasdarans – the Islamic Revolutionary Guards – who are behind Hamas,” he told me.
“I have also seen demonstrations by Iranians in support of Israel, demonstrations of compassion. Not in Iran, because it would be too dangerous to do so, but within the diaspora in the United States and Paris. »
François-Henri Désérable believes that we “do not travel to feast our eyes on new landscapes, but to return with different eyes”. And he returns from his 40 days in Iran with fewer prejudices.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
François-Henri Désérable
He first understood that “the Iranians are far from being religious fanatics”, even if the fundamentalism of the regime in power is notorious.
He was also able to see that “the Iranian people have nothing against the United States of America, and nothing against the Jews.” “A second prejudice has fallen,” he said.
It is wise, in short, to make a distinction between the regime and the people in Iran.
What the writer observed on the ground is that Iranians dream of the day when the regime will fall.
“I have never met a people who showed such widely shared distrust of the regime in place,” he said.
He cites a poll “which was not intended to be made public” and which found that 82% of Iranians supported the protesters’ demands against the regime. His stay there seems to demonstrate that this result is rather faithful to reality.
“During my trip, if I put aside the Revolutionary Guards who arrested me at the end, I only met one Iranian who sang the praises of this regime,” he tells me.
He explains it clearly in his work, in fact. What he also emphasizes is the courage of the Iranians who dared to challenge the country’s leaders. In his book as in an interview.
The Iranian regime is unspeakably barbaric. He established a reign of fear. He does not hesitate to torture and kill his opponents. However, many Iranians brave this fear, often at the risk of their lives.
The writer tells me a touching anecdote which appears in his essay. His meeting with a young woman who was learning poems “to prepare for the possibility of prison”.
She told me that if we deprived her of her freedom, her dignity, her family, her friends, that if we tortured her, there is at least one little thing that we could not take from her: the poems that she had learned by heart and would recite it while waiting for death or freedom.
François-Henri Désérable
I owe you a few explanations in closing. I started this text by explaining to you that François-Henri Désérable had played hockey, but I did not provide you with details.
Here they are: From the ages of 18 to 29, he was a professional hockey player. “In France, which is not as glorious as in Canada, far from it,” he takes care to specify. That’s still how he earned his living.
Hockey is the big thing in my life. I would trade every book I have published to play a season for the Montreal Canadiens. And it is not to flatter the Quebec people that I say that.
François-Henri Désérable
And added: “Baudelaire speaks of painting as his great and primitive passion. For me, ice hockey is my great and primitive passion. »
After reading his essay on Iran, I am not disappointed that he decided to trade his stick for his pen half a dozen years ago. Either way, a career in hockey comes with a relatively early expiration date.
At the very end of the interview, he told me that he had recently stayed in Rojava, a Kurdish territory in Syria, in order to produce a report there. I’m already looking forward to diving into it.
Questionnaire without filter
Coffee and me: I never have coffee. I only drink hot chocolate.
A book I would have liked to write: The use of the worldby Nicolas Bouvier.
A book I would give to a friend: I would still be tempted to answer The use of the worldbut I will cite another: The perfumeby Patrick Süskind.
A book on my bedside table currently: Another travel essay, The truceby Primo Levi, who is well known for If it’s a manthe story of his passage through the Auschwitz camp.
People, living or dead, that I would like to bring together to discuss: Romain Gary, Che Guevara, Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, Nicolas Bouvier and Victor Hugo.
Who is François-Henri Désérable?
- François-Henri Désérable was born in 1987 in Amiens.
- Now aged 36, he was a professional hockey player in France from the ages of 18 to 29.
- He published his first book, You will show my face to the peoplein 2013 by Gallimard editions.
- He has since published four other books, translated into around fifteen languages, including his travel account in Iran, The wear and tear of a world. He received the grand novel prize from the Académie française in 2021 for his novel My master and my conqueror.