Lausanne-based author Mathias Howald returns with Sewn for you, in which he recounts his experience of the 90s, when the AIDS epidemic was rampant, and the traces it left behind. This auto-fictive tale in two parts gives voice to an era that is sometimes forgotten.
Sewn for you, is a long memory that rises to the surface. First, that of 1994 in the eyes of Mathias Howald, then that of the victims of AIDS and of all those involved in the fight against the disease. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) wreaked havoc in Switzerland, as elsewhere. The after-effects of this not-so-distant period are still being felt, and this is what the author wanted to bring back to our time, by creating a work in two parts.
A patchwork story, but not disjointed.
In 1994, Mathias Howald was a young teenager discovering his attraction to men, and with it the fear of this uncontrollable virus. While Télévision Suisse Romande (TSR) at the time relayed images from Zurich's infamous Platzspitz park (see photo essay p. 60-65), which had become a meeting place for heroin addicts, it also broadcasts the cultural program Viva presented by Pierre Biner. In this program, the journalist focuses on patchworks made in memory of the deceased. These quilts are the trigger and common thread for a story unlike any other. They enable the Swiss writer to give life to his characters, dead or alive, real or fictional, as he encounters them.
«I pulled on a thread and the images slowly unfolded, pattern by pattern. I'd had to store them in that part of the head we call the heart.»
Fragmented into two parts, the story jumps back to the present day and, in a way, responds to the 90s. Howald is no longer a teenager, and his days are no longer punctuated by school. AIDS is no longer topical... or almost. It is still very much present in his mind, and in a few scenes from everyday life, such as this afternoon in 2019, when André, a 64-year-old HIV-positive man from Biel, meets a class of 13- or 14-year-old schoolchildren to talk about his HIV status and the after-effects it has left him with:
«He demonstrates with a lump of sugar that he dips into his coffee: the sugar becomes tinted, it's as if deactivated, but it's still there.»
The author plays with forms. Published under Gallimard's new «Scribes» label, Sewn for you is a work that doesn't fit into any box, or rather into a multitude of boxes at once. The text sometimes takes the form of a diary, a story, an e-mail, a report or even a poem, all the while following this almost tangible thread. While this liberty may disconcert some readers, it will delight others.
A personal story that echoes
The story is personal, even intimate, but it also traces a wider history. Howald sets a precise context and tells the story of characters who, at one time or another, crossed the path of illness. This is the strength of this book, which combines autobiography, fiction and investigation. For, albeit from a subjective point of view, the book retraces a part, however small, of the trajectory of a Switzerland crossed by AIDS. Howald makes a veritable tour of the country, from Lausanne to Zurich, even daring to slip in a few snatches of Swiss German.
Masks, hospitals, patients, testimonials - the images that flashed across our screens during the Covid-19 pandemic are not unlike those of HIV. The two periods speak to each other. By unearthing the story of AIDS, from which there is still no cure, the author reminds us that it is still making inroads into our lives, and that it has not only affected the homosexual or drug scenes, but the whole of society, in one way or another. Sewn for you mobilizes these painful years, perhaps so that they are not forgotten.
Write to the author: chelsea.rolle@leregardlibre.com
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Mathias Howald
Consu for you
Editions Scribes
may 2023
216
French 
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English