PARADIGMA
A WORD FROM THE PUBLISHER
AURÉLIEN MASSON
Pia Petersen continues her lucid, gripping, hypnotic literary work. She told me about the writing of this novel, which took a long time to write, because it's not one of those little consumer novels, as quickly written as read. No, Paradigma is a great novel, a real novel, tackling the times with destabilizing vigor, stylistic violence and powerful political reflection. I would add that the book is MAGNIFICENTLY edited. It's a beautiful book, a great book, a strong book. A book I won't forget. Bravo Pia Petersen! I hope the book finds many readers.
NICOLAS IDIER, writer
I met Pia Petersen in 2010, when I was still a journalist for Arte, doing a report on authors who don't write in their native language. Pia is Danish but has always chosen French. After the interview, we had a drink, then a second one, and so on into the night. We've been friends ever since, and I've read just about every one of her books. If I had to categorize her, I'd say Pia writes "metaphysical thrillers". These are highly coded, Anglo-Saxon-style novels (novel noir, psychological thriller, ultra-oppressive in camera thrillers), which she then models to slip in her own reflections: the relationship to money, solitude, violence, art. With characters crushed by a system trying to survive. It's both gripping and full of questions. I don't know of any contemporary French-language author who, like Pia, has the skill to write literature that is both effective and demanding.
DENIS MICHELIS,writer
ALAIN MABANCKOU, writer
This is an unbridled introspection of an American society plunged into its own failings.
Pia Petersen tells us about an uprising, the unique moment when people stop walking like robots and take their destiny into their own hands. The riot is described from the inside, and we follow it step by step, not so much from the perspective of the mass, but from that of the many people involved. This multiplicity of narrative points of view is both dense and poignant, as the author manages to give a singular voice to each of her characters. Paradigma is a dark novel, revealing in unflinching strokes the tensions that are tearing our contemporary societies apart. The book breathes sulfur and gunpowder, presenting us with a world of latent conflict, where different social groups stare at each other like dogs. A society lulled by all-embracing, soothing rhetoric, when in reality everyone lives in their own world, well sheltered. All it takes is one spark for everything to go up in flames, and for a new human organization to rise from the ashes of the old. Paradigma describes this moment of crisis, this spark. Last but not least, Paradigma is the story of a meeting between two individuals in the midst of revolt. It's also a love story. After all, aren't love and abandonment in love truly revolutionary acts? It's about plunging into the unknown, into the breach. For better or for worse, perhaps, but in the meantime, to stay alive...