La Gloire D Ines

INES IN HER GLORY

"My daughter Inès died in a fire in central Paris. Seven years have passed, equivalent to a third of her life. The time has come for me to honour the young woman she was and the dazzling promise she incarnated. To resume the conversation that her death failed to interrupt.
It is unbearable for me to have been separated from her since 21^st March 2009, but I have not lost her. And it is by her side that I found friends, brothers and sisters from the distant past and the searing present.
Poets, writers, philosophers, painters and musicians - all these orphaned parents guided me towards a secret truth. The important event is not Inès's death, but the gift of having seen her born, of watching her exist and express herself. I've learned that by glorifying her I can eventually explore the mysterious feeling that she is here."
P. D.


Philippe Delaroche is a writer and journalist. He won the Hennessy Prize for literary journalism, and has written two novels and the Dictionnaire de l'adolescence (with Joseph Naouri, Presses de la Renaissance).