Gabriel Matzneff's 'Vous avez dit Métèque?' Collects Decades of Essays

Gabriel Matzneff's new book 'Vous avez dit Métèque?' compiles his chronicles published in various gazettes from 1958 to 2007, along with speeches and communications. The collection includes a notable 1978 conference in Djerba titled 'Le suicide philosophique.' The volume features Matzneff's characteristic obsessions: the Orthodox Church, Sextus Empiricus, cruising, Byron, Lucullus, Dionysos, Petronius, and Port-Royal. A brilliant preface by the author justifies the title and expresses his irritation with 'the proliferation of the adjective 'identitarian.'' He states, 'Never since the Liberation have xenophobic tensions been so acute in France.' Matzneff criticizes the trend of returning to roots, low-level Barrèsism, and the apology of blood rights over soil rights. He quotes the proverb 'Scratch the Russian, you find the Tartar' and adapts it: 'Scratch the French writer, you find the beur from Saint Petersburg who, exasperated by this chilly chauvinism, suddenly feels solidarity with the beurette from Oujda.' The preface positions Matzneff as a disciple of Epicurus and Pyrrho, ever vigilant. The book follows his previous collections: 'Le Sabre de Didi' (1986), 'Le Dîner des mousquetaires' (1995), 'C'est la gloire, Pierre-François!' (2002), and 'Yogourt et yoga' (2004).