Camille Laurens: La vie s'appelle reviens

Camille Laurens's new book 'Encore et jamais' (Gallimard) explores the theme of repetition through 38 brief chapters that function as variations. The work blends essay and novel, drawing on philosophers and writers from Kierkegaard to Deleuze, and references artists, poets, and musicians. Laurens confronts the paradox of writing about repetition without merely repeating, aiming to convert the already-said into the never-said. The book begins and ends with the same scene of waking, where anxiety returns with the day. Philippe Forest's review in artpress highlights how Laurens's poetic protocol allows speech to continually reprise itself, turning repetition into a generative force. The title phrase 'la vie s'appelle reviens' captures the ambivalence of repetition as both suffering and joy, until death.