Boris Cyrulnik is a neuropsychiatrist. He is the author of many books, all of them best-sellers, notably Un merveilleux malheur; Sauve-toi, la vie t’appelle; and more recently, Psychothérapie de Dieu [English?]. Boris Cyrulnik’s books regularly sell more than 350,000 copies.

“One writes to give shape to an uncertain world, to escape the fog by illuminating a corner of our mental world. The Second World War is the cause of my chaotic childhood. I now know, thanks to the intimate tales deep down inside me, to the tales shared with a few close friends, and to the tales that our culture tells about shattered childhoods, that it is still possible to ‘write suns.’

Scarcity invites creativity, loss inspires art, being an orphan, the writing of a novel. A life without action, without encounters, and without a novel would be but an existence without pleasure and without dreams, an icy chasm. This in part explains the frequency of orphans or of early separations among the creative population.

Indeed, among the great writers, how many were orphaned children, neglected, rejected children, all of whom battled loss with the written word? For them, the simple act of writing changed the flavor of the world.” B. C.

The new big book by Boris Cyrulnik on the power of literature to overcome misfortune, and on our irrepressible need for fiction to live.