Thomas Clerc's 'L'Homme qui tua Roland Barthes' Revisits Famous Deaths

Thomas Clerc's new book 'L'Homme qui tua Roland Barthes' (Éditions L'Arbalète Gallimard) is a collection of conceptually crafted short stories unified by the theme of crime. Clerc revisits real and fictional homicides, including the death of Roland Barthes, who was struck by a van on his way to the Collège de France. The book features a diverse list of figures: Abraham Lincoln, Maurice Sachs, Lady Diana, Gianni Versace, Thierry Paulin, Guillaume Dustan, Anna Politkovskaya, V.D. Nabokov, Erick Schmitt (the 'Human Bomb'), Pier Paolo Pasolini, a Parisian homeless man named Jésus, Marvin Gaye, Pierre Goldman, Rupert Cadell (from Hitchcock's 'Rope'), Édouard Levé, and Auguste Clerc (the author's great-grandfather). Clerc blends historical data with imaginative reconstruction, treating each death as a catalyst that transforms real persons into legendary figures. The collection includes a theoretical postface where Clerc discusses the short story genre in France and cites rock albums like David Bowie's 'Pin Ups' (1973) as influences for his conceptual approach. Stylistically, the book oscillates between classicism and avant-gardism, prose and poetry, impersonal narration and first-person discourse, and high art and pop culture. Clerc employs borrowing as a writing technique, distinct from quotation or pastiche. The penultimate story, dedicated to Édouard Levé (who died in 2007), serves as a personal homage.