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- Edmond Jabès was born in 1912 in Cairo, where his family had been settled for generations. Forced to leave Egypt in 1957,

- he settled in Paris where he opted for the French nationality. Speaking French and with a French culture,

- he is now considered as one of the significant writers of our time.

- His work has already been widely translated.

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- This morning, between Rue Monge Street and Mouffe, I left the desert, after Rue des Patriarches and Rue de l’Epée de Bois

- where my residence is erected, invade my district. The Nile was not distant.

- However, it is not on their banks that we used to walk that I took you, but where, like 2 adolescents taken by sleep, death lies by the side of life.

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- As a fact, it is in 1957 that I left that country where I was born and where I had always lived. And I left it because of my Jewish origins.

- This is a country that strongly marked me, it is the landscape of my childhood, 44 years of my life are here,

- and to talk to me about me about Egypt now seems a bit like a treason, because how to find back 44 years of life?

- I moved on since and Egypt has now become, for me, a mythical country, a dream. If I had to talk about Egypt,

- I would talk about the fascination that this country always had on me, but in Egypt I did not feel this fascination, as I was into it, I was living it.

- So the landscapes are my landscapes, my landscapes of my childhood,

- as soon as I opened my eyes, I saw this flat landscape, this desert. But that’s very curious, you once talked about exile,

- I also felt a bit as an exile in Egypt,

- as Egypt was my country, but it wasn’t the language of my country, the country of the language of my books.

- As a consequence, I’ve always felt without any place. Without any belonging. But the picture of a place is the image of Egypt.

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