Denis Johnson's 'Pistes' Collects 1990s Reportage from Liberia to Afghanistan

The French publication of 'Pistes – Reportages aux marges des États-Unis et d'ailleurs' collects eight reportages by American writer Denis Johnson, originally written in the 1990s. The book ventures into the civil war in Liberia and conflicts in Afghanistan, focusing on mundane details rather than geopolitical analysis. Johnson, known for his novel 'Jesus' Son' and his 'pynchonization' (a term suggesting a reclusive, enigmatic authorial persona), has described his own memory loss after writing—a phenomenon he likens to 'dead skins' shed by his characters. The collection opens and closes with two reports from Liberia (1990 and 1992), tracing Johnson's shift from journalistic reportage to first-person narrative. The book is framed as a 'logbook' that borders his literary work, revealing the instability of his forms. Johnson's novels, such as 'Des anges' (1982) and 'Des étoiles à midi' (1986), are seen as evidence of a writer who cannot recall his own past, leading to a stratified oeuvre where each work is a new beginning. The review argues that Johnson's literature is defined by a refusal of style and a response to the impossibility of inhabiting the contemporary world.