Occupation: wanderer. Yes, wandering was second nature to Ari Gautier. And to abound in his vagueness in the soul, we must speak of Madagascar where he was born, Pondichery where he grew up, France where he did not find his thinnai and Norway where he swims, where it snows every day.
Ari Gautier crossed on the canvas, intrigued me, with his beautiful artist’s head and his verb built on multiple rejections. Untouchable in India, native in the French counter of Pondicherry, today it is as a claimed Pondicherry native that he seizes his story, to inscribe it on the French literary map. Édouard Glissant and Leon Gontran-Damas can rest easy. On the bedside table of En Sol Majeur sit night Pondicherry (collection of short stories published by L’Harmattan) and The Thinnai (published by Le Lys bleu) presented by its author as a pre- and post-colonial transoceanic novel. the Thinnai Kreyol is founded by Ari Gautier and Ananya Jahanra Kabir (literature teacher)
Ari Gautier’s musical choices
Trilok Gurtu – Cherry Town
Billie Holiday- strange fruit
Miles Davis- So What
(Rebroadcast of the program of October 2, 2021)