Author of the unexpected literary success of spring, Meanwhile Bojangles ( ed. Finitude), Olivier Bourdeaut begins to write at 17 years, when his father brings to the house an "antediluvian" computer.

I have always been admiring writers. I then made several attempts, perfectly mediocre.

"We did not have a television at home, which gave us a choice between boredom, which is great for structuring the brain, and reading, which is even better. His mother had long occupied herself with the library at the hospital of Nantes. "She bought the books, which I read before she brought them to the sick. "

The click for writing

The enthusiastic discovery of the work of Arthur Conan Doyle makes him pass, at 14 or 15 years, from the comic to the novel. "It's the first time I've figured out that a book without pictures could be better than a comic book. Sherlock Holmes offered me my first literary insomnia. "

He interrupted his studies after the baccalaureat and began to work in real estate. "When I was 18, I was 14, I was not taken seriously. It can not be excluded, too, that I was absolutely nil. Yet, with experience and years, I began to garner sales. It worked so well that the merchant of goods fired me before paying me my commissions. "

His journey before the publication of his best novel: "Waiting for Bojangles"

Completely broke after his professional disappointments, he is hosted by one of his brothers in his house du Pouliguen, Loire-Atlantique, with instructions to finally tackle writing his dream. "Xavier offered me the roof and the cover, and lent his computer. Every evening he asked me if I had worked well, as the parents do. "

It is in the hinterland of the Costa Blanca, where his parents, retired, live that the author of Waiting for Bojangles will acquire a sunny cabanon, where to retire to write and live away from the tumult. "I love Spain, its climate, people and their state of mind. "

His life after "Waiting for Bojangles"

Success has not changed it, but it has become somewhat feverish in the face of an avalanche of demands of all kinds.

I am graciously jostled. It is an intense promotional rhythm. I've always been told it's bad to talk about yourself. And I spend my days being ill-bred.

Overwhelmed by Meanwhile Bojangles , many of his readers, in the salons, thank him for having treated lightly the drama of madness. Yet at the awards ceremony of the France Culture-Télérama student novel, a member of the jury was violently attacking him. "It was my party, and it was the only time I got banged up. She had probably personal reasons. "

Oddity that has nothing of an obsolete affection: Olivier Bourdeaut speaks in a chastened way. "I take this from my grandmother, who spoke a delicious French. I must be a little disturbed! (Laughter.) I hate the fashionable expressions. "