- Silence

- The Notebooks of the South published in Marseilles, canal 10 dominated the literary journals during over half a century.

- Jean Balard, its founder, turned Marseilles into a witty capital that had an influence over France and abroad.

- The journal was especially oriented on the Mediterranean spirit

- and more on poetry than on the novel, essays, philosophical essays, spirituality or human sciences.

- noise

- Mrs Balard, what was the spirit of the Notebooks of the South?

- Oh, God, the spirit!

- Beauty ! The beauty of the text, the beauty of writing.

- And above all, all the young poets they revealed.

- There was the Nouvelle Revue Française, and right after that came the Notebooks of the South, the real avant-garde,

- all the great poets contributed to it.

- As soon as a poet thought he was well trained and above all...

- So we sent a note or we bothered coming to see Jean Balard.

- The Notebooks of the South, it is above all the quality, the search, the finest poetry,

- no hope for concession for printing, to celebrity, let’s say of display,

- and I think it is possible to somehow explain that this journal takes now.

- Well, it was published during 50 years but whether it were now that we realize that it is a gem,

- a book, a series of books to which to is necessary to refer to to know what the literature of the 20th century was.

- I already said it several times, didn’t I?

- what is extraordinary is to see writers we know today

- for instance let’s say, Asturias, a famous man now, South America,

- published in the Notebooks of the South in 1932. A Greek is granted the Nobel Prize, Elytis,

- many people, even if they very well know, tell themselves: “Who is he?”

- You refer the matter to the Notebooks of the South, you can be sure it is there and it is there.

- So the chief editor, Mr Balard, was a true magician, a water diviner, a humble man,

- who looked neither for honors, nor for salons, nor for academies

- and who did a job, let’s say it, certainly unique in France

- and it is possible to add that it was unique in our Western Europe.