Sarah, who is majoring in literature, writes to a famous author to express her admiration of his work. Flattered by her enthusiasm, he replies. And so begins a correspondence that will occupy an ever-larger place in our protagonists’ lives. Starting out with literary topics, their dialogue gradually grows more intimate. Sarah is naively idealistic, angry about injustice and society’s mercantilism. Marked by the deportation of her Jewish relatives during the war, she aspires to express her indignation freely, and change the world. The older, more lucid man encourages her to choose life rather than books. His own existence has taught him that there is more complexity and reality in the self-contained world of the little park near his apartment then in the complete works of Shakespeare...
But this bildungsroman, which sees Sarah gradually temper her fiery, radical instincts and transform her vision of the world thanks to her contact with the writer, isn’t as linear as it seems at first glance: the man who helps her turn into an adult turns out to be a despicable person. Disillusion is sometimes the price you have to pay to grow up. But will she ever know what she really owes him?

A novel whose form is reminiscent of the Letters to a Young Poet, written in an elegantly classical style, and fraught with real suspense. The touchingly realistic main characters bring a deeply human dimension to their questioning about literature’s raison d’être.