Mythologies

MICHEL GALIANA (1933 - 1999) published a novel, "The Shadow Theatre" (1966) similar to Voltaire's philosophical tales; two essays, entitled "Beyond your Homeland" (1987) and "Treatise on Indifference" (1989), in which he proclaims that he wants no part in the collective extravagances forced on us by the state and society and extolls indifference as a virtue, excluding however revolt, which generates new kinds of alienation; and two collections of narratives, "A Trip to the West Suburbs" (1991) and "The Cry" (1993), unfolding on the borderland between two worlds, the objective one and the haunted domain which everybody may call his own and is perhaps the best part of him. His other works include "The Dream in the Orchard," "In Memoriam" (1991), and "Out of a Book of Hours" (1992).

His brother and English translator, Christian SOUCHON, is a translator with the international organization OECD. He believes that only verses may translate verses and that a prose translation would be like a black and white photograph of a gorgeous colourful painting.