Les romans de Mathias Énard connaissent un succès qui ne se dément pas. Ce volume cherche à éclairer les modalités narratives qui permettent à l’auteur de transformer l’érudition en roman, mais aussi à situer son œuvre dans le contexte littéraire actuel. The novels of Mathias Énard have become instant classics. This volume seeks to shed light on the narrative modalities that allow the author to transform erudition into a novel, but also to situate his work in the current literary context.

2019 witnessed the 30th anniversary of the German reunification. But the remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall coincided with another event of global importance that caught much less attention: the 250th anniversary of Napoleon Bonaparte's birth. There is an undeniable historical and philosophical dimension to this coincidence. Napoleon's appearance on the scene of world history seems to embody European universalism (soon thereafter in the form of a 'modern' imperial project); whilst scholars such as Francis Fukuyama saw in the events of 1989 its historical fulfilment. Today, we see more...