Provoking debate
Casually dressed, soft-spoken and a patient listener, Pascal Bruckner is an acclaimed French novelist. Born with an instinct for the fresh, Bruckner belongs to the Generation of 1968, a revolutionary era in the history of France. In town to promote The Divine Child (Rupa France), a novel published sometime back, he is a man who doesn’t divorce politics, culture and sexuality. “There are numerous ways to exhibit the spirit of resistance. In France, everybody wants to resist, some against the government and others against culture. In Divine Child the question that I place before readers is what if a child were permitted to choose, before birth, whether or not to enter the world,” says Bruckner. In the book, Madeleine Barthelemey is pregnant with twins. Doctors advice her to undertake their education in utero. Soon Celine is born. But she has to forgo her eruditeness upon entering the world. Being a spectator of her fate, Louis refuses birth and embarks on a rebellion. In chapters like “t...