Between when Éric Chacour started writing what i know about you and the one where he dared to send it to a publisher, a good ten years passed. Without the pandemic which has slowed everything down, perhaps this novel which commands admiration for the high quality of its writing would not have yet landed in bookstores.
“I said to myself that I had no more excuses for not carrying out this project. I was very lucky, because the first publisher I sent it to was Alto. It was really my very first choice, ”says the first novelist who evolves in the world of finance on the phone.
“It’s important to find a publisher who has an editorial line that is close to what you write”, adds the one who is full of praise for his publisher, Catherine Leroux (The future, Viola, 2020). “At Alto, we publish novels that don’t seek to be anchored in the present moment; many foreign authors are also published. For a few years, I was director of innovation for a financial center. There is something very nice about Alto that interests me: an innovation incubator.Alto does wonderful things, like the cabinet Clairvoyants, which is another way of bringing literature to life. »
For what i know about you, Éric Chacour has however turned his gaze to the past and drawn his inspiration from his Egyptian origins. “My parents were born in Egypt, my father in Cairo, my mother in Alexandria, and they met in Montreal, where I was born. So it’s a country that I know well, having been there fifteen times, but the Egypt that I wanted to tell is quite different from the one I go to on vacation or for business trips. It’s an Egypt that I recomposed from the stories of my parents, their friends, the family that I can have there. »
From father to son
Spanning from 1961 to 2001, taking us from Cairo to Montreal, what i know about you sketches the portrait of a man, Tarek, a doctor who inherited his father’s practice. Above the plush apartment he shares with his wife, Mira, live his mother and sister, Nesrine. Truculent good at everything, Fatheya knows the comings and goings of everyone, but knows how to remain discreet, which does not prevent her from openly mocking the love that her boss has for France.
“The Egypt of the novel is that of a very specific community, that of the Levantines, those Syro-Lebanese who lived there for several generations before leaving it en masse at the time of Nasser’s nationalization, and whose many came to Quebec. They were mostly Christians, of French-speaking culture, quite westernized. There remains today a large community that came to Montreal at that time, just like Tarek in my novel. »
In fact, for having dared to defy fate, although his mother repeats “ mektoub », Tarek will leave the Cairo sun and become, to use the words of Alain Farah in thousand secrets, thousand dangers (Le Quartanier, 2021), “Levantine in the silence of winter”.
“Beyond the formula,”mektoub”, “everything is written”, it is a state which one finds at the Orientals, this side a little fatalistic, “the elevator does not work today, we will see tomorrow”. This is something the Egyptians themselves amuse themselves with when they talk about their little quirks. »
A forbidden love
This side step that Tarek takes to deviate from his all-written destiny is to offer his services in a dispensary to the outcasts who live in the ruins and debris of the Moqattam district. One evening, while he is working in his office, Ali, a young man who saw him at the dispensary, asks him to come to the bedside of his sick old mother. Soon Tarek feels attracted to Ali. However, in Cairo in the early 1980s, an affair between two men, who moreover come from social classes at odds with each other, is viewed with suspicion.
“In the novel, the contrast is very important to me. I thought it was interesting to show a very different way of experiencing one’s homosexuality. Ali, who lives it quite openly, who has made it his job, can surprise in a society so focused on tradition. We sometimes have the impression that homosexuality does not exist in these countries, there is nothing more ridiculous than that. It interested me to know how it could manifest itself, to imagine this secret relationship. I didn’t want to go into anything too deep about acceptance by society, but we feel that it’s kind of a constant sword of Damocles on this relationship. »
However, it is with modesty, respect and benevolence that the narrator, whose identity we will not know until halfway through, tells the love story between Tarek and Ali. “It is not for me to tell what happened that night. I will never side with those who judge it but do not seek to imagine it either. It’s up to you, that’s all. I stick to guessing the obsession that was yours in the days that followed. »
“I wanted this tender look from the narrator on Tarek, explains Éric Chacour. If I had taken an external narration, I could have told what Egypt was, talked a little more about politics; the narrative choice meant that there were things that had to be taken for granted and that I could bring to light, but without going into them too much at the risk of not being probable. Moreover, the scenes in Montreal that are not narrated by the narrator are in a very different format from that of the narrations in Egypt. »
You women
Despite the dramas that follow one another in Tarek’s life, there is a joie de vivre and a sensuality, not to mention the heady flavors of cooking, which emanate from what i know about you — which was originally to be called What I know of you smelled of garlic and anise.
“I wanted to write an olfactory novel! It is in this kitchen where all the smells mix that part of the information is drawn. I wanted to show this story through different meanings. In Montreal, the narratives are much more cinematographic, we are in what is seen, not in what is felt. This contrast was important because there is a bit of the oriental soul in these smells, in this warmth that I find when I go there. »
Having exiled himself far from the scorching sun and heady scents to lead his destiny as he sees fit, Tarek will understand years later the role that women will have played in his life.
“The paradox of what i know about you, is that one could believe that it is a rather masculine novel, whereas it is extremely feminine. The characters who have a strength of character are the women. I come from a family where women have real strength, an extremely marked character, an ability to decide. The paradox is all the stronger when they are placed in a society, that of Egypt at the end of the 20th century.e century, where they are not really given a voice, where they do not necessarily have a preponderant social role. I find it’s always interesting to see how, with these constraints, the characters manage to express themselves differently. »