ENTRETIEN LONG FORMAT, Antoine Bernhard | A côté de son métier d’enseignant dans un lycée valaisan, Stéphane Albelda engage une grande partie de son temps dans le théâtre. Cette année, avec les compagnies Nova Malacuria et Hussard de Minuit, il a porté à la scène la vie passionnante et mystérieuse d’Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Il revient, pour Le Regard Libre, sur sa pièce Saint-Exupéry volé au ciel et sa passion pour «Saint-Ex», écrivain né à l’aube du XXe siècle, disparu au crépuscule de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, mais dont l’œuvre n’a pas fini de passionner les hommes.

LONG FORMAT INTERVIEW, Ivan Garcia | Every year, the «Le Livre sur les quais» festival in Morges is the rendezvous of the Swiss literary season, where authors, publishers and readers meet on the shores of Lake Geneva. For this twelfth edition, the honorary president of the event is none other than Spanish writer and translator Javier Cercas. Based in Catalonia, the columnist for the Spanish daily «El País» has been writing books since the 1980s. His best-selling novel, «The Soldiers of Salamis», published in 2001, features a journalist investigating a mysterious soldier who, during the Spanish Civil War, is said to have saved the ideologue and founding member of the Spanish Falange, Rafael Sánchez Mazas. Particularly interested in the history of contemporary Spain, from which he draws material for his writings, Javier Cercas has recently embarked on a series of detective novels centered around the detective-investigator Melchor Marin, the first part of which, «Terra Alta», was translated into French this year by Editions Actes Sud. Meet the writer on a September afternoon, under the «Livre sur les quais» authors' tent, to discuss his work and the situation in Spain and Catalonia.

Entretien avec Jean-Pierre Siggen

They're both 24, studying contemporary history at the University of Fribourg, and are among the most successful bands in French-speaking Switzerland this summer. Faustine Pochon and Arnaud Rolle, committed but not militant, make up the French-speaking indie pop duo BARON.E. Revealed in particular by the presence of their single Un verre d'égo in a playlist of the prestigious French magazine Les Inrocks, but above all by the quality of their work as measured by their listeners and spectators, the Dzodzets of the moment present us with their new EP Créature, comprising, like the previous one, five songs situated between pop, electro and progressive rock. They invite us to meet them on the rooftops of Fribourg, their home town, to talk about music and society.

Quebec sociologist Mathieu Bock-Côté castigates the «diversitarian regime» that is tending to replace democracy as we know it in the Western world. Interview about his latest book, La révolution racialiste.

On June 28, we met Professor Georges Nivat, an eminent French Slavic scholar, at his home in Haute-Savoie. His hospitality is Russian, and the view splendid. He welcomes us to his garden, which he likes to take care of for an hour every morning before plunging into his work. Among other activities, Georges Nivat is currently translating the Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus into French. The next day, he has a Zoom appointment with Kiev, an opportunity to exchange nuances of Ukrainian with the man who helped him acquire the language. The Russian world is his home; we hope to discover a few versts of it under his guidance.

Over the past year, the coronavirus crisis, with all the questions, insecurities and frustrations it has brought, has given rise to a number of conspiracy theories, the scale of which has continued to grow. These simplistic and, in some cases, dangerous theories, as distinct from opinions critical of the management of the crisis or the doubt inherent in science itself, are well and truly present. How can we explain the success of conspiracism in the age of Covid-19? Back to basics with Laurent Cordonier, sociologist and specialist in this phenomenon.

Discoveries about his father, bisexuality, hypersensitivity, cocaine, criticism of the present age: William Sheller opens up in his autobiography, published in March, as well as in this exceptional interview, in which he assures us that he has stopped singing for good.

ENTRETIEN LONG FORMAT, Ivan Garcia | En mars dernier, Pascal Vandenberghe, président directeur général des librairies Payot, a publié Le Funambule du livre, suivi de La librairie est un sport de combat, aux Editions de L’Aire. L’ouvrage divisé en deux parties (un long entretien et un essai), dont Le Regard Libre a chroniqué la première dans ses «bouquins du mardi», dévoile dans un premier temps le parcours professionnel de «Monsieur Payot», qui a connu plusieurs casquettes: ajusteur-mécanicien, libraire à la Fnac, éditeur et, depuis 2004, directeur général de Payot SA. En 2014, Pascal Vandenberghe rachète l’entreprise au groupe Lagardère Services et devient alors PDG de la société qui regroupe en son sein les librairies Payot et l’enseigne Nature & Découvertes Suisse. Dans un second temps, l’essai de «Monsieur Payot» expose les transformations vécues par le monde du livre ces quarante dernières années sous le regard d’un fin connaisseur. A plusieurs égards, il est possible de comparer Pascal Vandenberghe à Martin Eden, le héros d’un des romans éponymes de Jack London. Lecteur acharné, notre homme du jour s’est formé en autodidacte et s’est hissé petit à petit à la tête du plus grand réseau de librairies généralistes de Suisse romande. Pour discuter de son ouvrage, le patron de Payot nous reçoit dans son bureau lausannois – au sein duquel trône un portrait de Fritz Payot, fondateur de la librairie – et nous entretient du rôle de la librairie dans la société, du monde du livre et des défis auxquels il sera prochainement confronté.