oh that little play. is how the bank sends a clear message to donald trump in an exclusive interview saying it hopes the u.s. president thinks his decision to call off the peace talks this latest. american t.v. network sues the m s n b c's host rachel maddow for describing them as paid to. the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu who didn't wrap up talks in the russian resort of sochi the topics of discussion included syria iran un security and the middle east. has more of the day's top stories for you coming up next interviews with some of the world's most remarkable people on sofia.

hello and welcome to sophie cohen visionaries i'm sophie shevardnadze and they call him the owner. of the french literature for his no mercy approach to the evils of the modern society and masking them with some hard thing humor and satire today i talked to writer literally create a t.v. presenter and film director had to take big. but if i go back there it's really nice to have you with us today's been a while we wanted to have an interview with you what a chance that you're here in moscow so i want to start with back with your collection that's a new project that's going to come out in 6 months it's sort of a compilation of french writers you're not a meat you're

a producer or an editor of this thing and it's supposed to talk it's supposed to show the french way on eternal matters and i correct exactly what are they say matters you know it's a crazy idea is that russian writer famous. to ask me to choose my favorite books of contemporary writers and put my name on the cover instead of theirs but no i will i will ask that my name is smaller than the name of the author it's just that we present my favorite novels of the last 10 years. so no voters about yet today about the the the world how it's changing so quickly and so we really. we're working on the list we're working on the translations we didn't choose everything but it's very glad and i think it's a beautiful idea because we need ideas to. put

closer our 2 cultures france and russia were very close in the 19th century and now less crazy nations like you that do crazy. anything like the way in a good way we like to criticize everything relate to complain we're very subjective we like parties we like to go out we like seduction yeah you like beautiful woman russian men like beautiful women tell about but do i understand correctly that in this new book that's coming out it's going to be only french writers or i cannot tell you different. because we are working but i hope there will be 2 american novels that i love recently but the problem is we didn't sign the contracts yes yet so it's possible that the books that i want to translate are already sold to another publishing company so i'm asking because like to me and for many

people who who know a little bit of french culture you are as french as they get as a character as a writer like you very french but for those who aren't familiar with the french literature and french culture i figured like you were choosing french writers in your book so that they would show the french way french point of view on life in general what makes in your own words. french literature french says the language. well. the pleasure the fact that we like we like a certain way of life. not too crazy about working all day long but more you know taking time to eat drink. beer i said. no sarcasm i remain yes yes yes a way of you know we exist. criticizing the

power or kind of powers not accepting taboos exactly exactly fighting for freedom. so you know that in this world that is changing so fast maybe france is one of the places trying to resist. this change you know to stay to. have a certain quality of life that's that's very. good that you say that because i've been observing everything that is going on after challis and do after the bet that khloe and i mean when something like this happens no matter how safe you feel afterwards life just can't be the same it's lake exactly can be the same but somehow french people just managed in your face to just continue living the way they lived like many other people would have closed down you know it's very it's

very true is very interesting because you know most school is changing. is the 1st time i come since a few years and i see a saw a real change because there was this huge city party you know so everything was closed and everybody was outside it was very sunny the weather was beautiful and there was a lot of crowd into streets but not only because of these. concerts but because of there are lots of terrorists outside cafes people who take a glass of wine sitting in the street this didn't exist 20 years ago i don't remember seeing russians they exist with tables and chairs in the street taking time to drink a glass of wine so what i'm saying is the power way of life now is russian so this is cool and this is a very good news because this is the way of life that was attacked on november 25th

in barry's not only about that but people are just sitting outside having a drink. this way of life is considered a crime by some people who want to kill because you deserve death when you have a drink so you know where if most school people are sitting outside having a drink it's a political gesture it's resisting you know it's it's cool it's fun and it's nice but it's also very important morally and politically it's important to talk to me a little bit about how that resistance is portrayed in the literature in the modern literature i want to know about french literature the national character because it's something that interests me very much for instance the way the french perceive french literature and the people outside france is very different like for instance destiny esky that everyone greets from i don't know paris to mexico city they're

convinced that this is a genius who embodies the russian psychology but for people at home this is a genius a guy with enormous talent who is just very weird and has nothing to do with national psyche cheli i mean really when you when you write books that you think are french or you choose your writers in your eyes to be french. how do you mean the difference between what really is french and the stereotype that people have for french it's you know i'm not really that clever because when they when they choose a book i just choose a book that made me laugh or cry or make me angry or just shook me provoked at the valley and created a reaction so it doesn't mean i'm not thinking will does book please the russian or the french people i just react in a way that i think oh this guy is great this is great i want to translate it i want

to transmit this virus to foreign readers why not but i don't mean i don't say or i think your question is excellent but if you are you are maybe too intellectual for me or a little material is very simple it does too yes good sometimes makes me cry i don't really analyze why. it's true that for example i ask of with all his contradictions you know he's like totally tortured inside and he in the end he finds a sort of redemption and for us french people we we think all russians are like these tortured people that find a solution to their problems or people who drink too much or people who gambled too much and finally maybe there is an issue because they find god for example you know

i'm doing something really simple to this isn't a very deep i mean summing up just to your skin one sentence it's not really easy but. when you're a foreigner you look at russians like this you think these people they have many temptations of many kinds of money fame i don't know beautiful girls or you know killing yourself with drugs and alcohol. but then the turn to something more beauty for we can be nature it can be family or you can be god or routine i don't know but anyway. it's good when you ease the tree it's a tree it's not you're not the same at the end of the book as you were when you started the book. now that you're editor would you please myself lately read yourself for the 1st time. i have to think about these take it because i'm always

very very. mean to myself so maybe i would say heart disease who you see are young buster no i mean i don't really love what they do more with would love to correct my old books you know and when i reread myself i am ashamed so i don't know if i would publish me but it's important to be able to. others when you when you're right you don't write exner hilo you always write from somewhere from the love of the great books that you have read when you were a child or other listened and so for me it's important to admire young writers and new writers but for me it says i'm very very severe to connecticut you may find this question deep but i think it's like a really important question because you're a writer and this is your bread this makes you leave in your family do you feel

like books today and writers today are supposed to actually tell people how to leave because like in the old times that's what it was we didn't have media wouldn't have internet like you only had religious texts or writers so you would take a book and you know i should do these or i should behave like these are my problem solution is here what about now do you feel like what will be one books in general . richer in general is something that they say to their to question in your question because. now there is a trend of you know manual of self development you know many writers and many readers think that the deal at your is. it's its thing that has to show you and tell you how to live and they don't like that i i think there is a mission in literature but it's not exactly that it's when you read all those stories of millions of stories it helps you to know how to

love how to accept aging how to behave when something horrible happens because you have read all those stories and you you know maybe you're prepared for death of someone you love for example or you know catastrophes like that so i don't i'm thinking it's not self development it's not a writer telling you how to live but in a nother way in a strange mysterious way they teach us how to. how to live in a different way so that's what my answer i don't know if it's too complicated no it's actually very deep you're telling me you're not deep enough you're actually neurosurgeon and there really is and there is a new mission i see in in novels. because we are in a world where there is a lot of images television your phone. and not enough

time for yourself and when you read a book you turn off your computer you turn off your smartphone you turn of the t.v. . and you are with yourself and with the soul of the writer it's this miracle. this. is very important i think and this is only in books you don't have this anywhere else and there were. more and more every day because people read less. now while we're back will continue talking to. us.

when we're hoping that. the system. itself in the world which is. between war. and. conservation of nature and. this is. growing indications the west's anti russia's stance may be softening a case in point is the recent visit a friend. and defense minister or take for example the new york times editorial

calling on trump to better relations with the kremlin as a way to block china an important question remains can moscow trust the west and evil. this is a stick. found in the stomach of a fish the brand is part of the coca-cola company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that. let's tell consumers. the litterbugs are trying this way industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has promised to reuse the plastic. but for now the mountains of moist only grow.

and we're back with. you since you're saying that you know books is the only way to another person's soul or to your soul let's talk about they turn your life i mean you're saying you don't take yourself too seriously and you're very critical of what you write but i mean the title the turner life is something that so many people before you have. just in simple words what have you find out about immortality that all this philosopher is writer scientist happened before you that science now is close to really changing mankind and this is he said never happened before the so the situation now of our species

homo sapiens is that. it's scientists doctors in china in america in russia. everywhere working on improving. us as. you know so this is new this is really very strange immortally. is the most old subject of you don't have to the 1st novel ever found. maybe 35000 years ago is going to get the story of a guy who doesn't want to die so and then you have jesus who talked about the term of eternal life and then you have hundreds and thousands of books dorian gray frankenstein. you know many many books talking about these the only thing that i

did in my little one is that i met many scientists all over the world that are really actually working on how to make us live longer would you want that for yourself if you had a choice between these healthy good looking happy. with a family find a better way than you getting old gradually and seeing your kids grow or stopping or living 5 by 500 years. 150-155-0015 extension 0 we almost can't do it now because john coleman was almost the stage even though there is debate about judd. but. well i answer in the book that if it's possible to save the lives of all the people i love and stay healthy and you know good looking then why not why not way refuse it but because we already have changed. in the middle

ages we would be dead now after 25 or 30 you are dead now we can live 66070 or 80 years old so we have doubled. length already we did it so it's possible to double again maybe triple and maybe we would love it. but what are the conditions what is the price to pay that's to christian thinking and doing didn't like the idea of actual immortality scary but if you think about immortality the obsession of human kind of being a decision since for ever and that's the driving force behind everything good literature philosophy technology science i mean if we can actually it seems that it's almost like there's no evolution it sounds like we're like different rates we're not humans anymore exactly you you said the answer the problem is if we

succeed we will not be humans anymore and that's where it doesn't bother you know no it worries me no no it worries me i like to be a human limited person with desires that are impossible to satisfy no no but. really when they when they talked with all these scientists especially in harvard medical school. i understood that if we if to become eternal we have to become partly robots sparkly mutants you know we have to become creatures like in. iraq or you know all those superhero movies then i don't think i want i don't think i want i don't want to be. algorithm or you know i don't want to be fuzzy and. so we're talking about the human evolution but literature like anything else like a living organism also evolves and you're saying people are reading less and less

you have 3 kids i've heard you say somewhere they don't read they chat with their friends on the internet mostly. their lives are ones because it's very young to have to have portable phones and i'm going to fight i'm good i hope i'm gonna fight but with my 20 year old daughter i lost about to her completely when she was 13 but this it's scary like do you feel like you're part of a dying breed because people aren't going to read any. more know she reads she reads but you know she doesn't read what they tell her to read and that's normal that's normal. but she does read and i think the they have a new way of using language and writing because they spend a lot of time on social media but they're writing it is writing even though they use too much smileys. but so. i don't know if i understand this next generation and they think it's normal it's just because i'm an

old guy but do you think about what's going to happen to books in literature for instance with t.v. and visuals like before when you meister at 3 musketeers it would be one chapter every week and then people would wait for it like cliffhangers and then you have h.b.o. netflix it's the same exact way that they're going to say and the stuff they do is good it is a good doesn't take it for a full it digs it's like really good stuff it's actually like nearly richard you feel like or you just replace a you totally and you know as nova least we cannot compete with you know such great work. so one. hope is that you don't let your we find new ways to become interesting again and it's not storytelling to tell only a story it's much better to be breaking bad. shows like that are so much efficient and you know there would have such in fact game of thrones but.

but you thought you hasn't no other way just to attract and seduce style emotions something deeper like meeting someone who has to same problems you have or someone telling his life with maximum honesty takings a dying. i said you know you have to turn off everything be with yourself sitting in a chair. maybe with a glass of old risky and you're suddenly resign and send solitude you have access to something superior maybe superior to cinema and television even great shows it's something else makes you feel very human and. so that's what i'm fighting for now but it must also somehow affect the storytelling there now because it's only a sense if x. is late we're doing this we read books to have stories we read books for something

else one of the books i want to translate in russia is a. gas station it's called the gas station and for $200.00 pages you are only in these gas station and the guy who is you know a cashier he's taking notes looking at the clients looking at the cars smelling the smell of. burning the toy that he's killing the nature around he's just taking notes there is no story it's just observations of every day people are coming to this gas station and i think this is kind of the future. for novels more of the racial rather than stories are one of the details you know and making you understand the world and look at the world look at ordinary things like they are not normal you know everything you think is normal is he's mad.

so you're saying storytelling is so much better done now on t.v. that he should i think we know where they're offering to steal our incredible stories in novels thank god there are but it's it's a difficult battle and i would i would choose to fight in another field. so you don't see yourself as a stereotype for minorities i mean for example no i don't think i'm really a storyteller. i think i do partly autobiographical books and partly because i get to know such to make people laugh about advertising or about models but so i never really bored and been incredibly bored story or you know something really completely original like like the great writers i love i know i know i'm not in this gets a goalie and it doesn't bother me but i've heard you also say once that you know you have to be somewhat not depressed or like on the down side to actually write

a book when everything is going to just want to have a drink i hear you on that one. but out is it really like that though stephen king said that life is not supposed to be a life support for the art it's dead the way around us very often yeah great poets or great artist are sad people that have a i don't know they have problems when they were young. the goes didn't want to kiss them so they wanted to become a genius yes it's true and then now they're mostly happy it's a problem and i've noticed that. some of my latest books written when they was hoping are very sad and so maybe when i write now i have a happy life but when i write i become. depressed again it's strange is a strange thing to write i put myself in the state where i was when i was frustrated

and angry other listened. so i go back to these to these. this hate that they had inside my set and not hate but the rage the rage to. to to to to put this sentence on paper. to imagine like if you had to choose because your sake i'm almost almost all the time happy right now right and that's. good thing so if you had a choice to have weaves a happy life. and never ever write a book because you can't write when you're happy or actually become unhappy to write late on the 1st one i think i take to have been this of course i think the happiness no no no i don't want to go back through to the you know misery. but maybe when i go out and get really wasted it's because i'm looking for state and a friend i write very late. and there and destroyed so

maybe that's the solution to drink too much well it looks to me like it's kind of perfect harmony between the taste so good luck with everything thank you very thanks for this time through. the i.

know that will be. you know world of big partisan. and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to get the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smart we need to stop slamming the. war on the bats and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks.