Sigolène Vinson: "The Berre pond deserves to have words put to the wounds inflicted on it"

In 2015, a few months after the Charlie Hebdo attack, from which she survived, Sigolène Vinson moved to Martigues (Bouches-du-Rhône). On the edge of the Etang de Berre, this Mediterranean lagoon of brackish water partly surrounded by industrial infrastructure, the writer has taken to unearthing life wherever it seems threatened. Because she undoubtedly seeks, she says, "comfort from living beings other than us humans" , she sees in this environment, where many species are on the verge of extinction, a literary object conducive to the celebration of life.

To the point that, since the publication of La Palourde (Le Tripode, 2023), Sigolène Vinson's work seems to be part of the ecopoetic vein, alongside, in particular, the books of Baptiste Morizot, Nastassja Martin or Clara Arnaud. As if literature were responsible, for her, for recalling or reestablishing the links that we maintain with all the ramifications of life. Her new novel, Le Bitor étoilé , which owes its title to a species of wading bird of which there is no longer any trace on the banks of the Étang de Berre, due to global warming, continues this quest.

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