From space, a giant dictation with astronaut Thomas Pesquet

Published on : 09/05/2021 – 13:40

Equipped with a sheet and a pen, nearly 500 people will write under the dictation of the astronaut Thomas Pesquet from space, an extract from the novel by Marguerite Duras “A dam against the Pacific”, for a “giant dictation “, Sunday September 5 at the Air and Space Museum, at Le Bourget, near Paris.

At 3 p.m., on the exhibition tarmac where tables and chairs will be set up, a giant screen will broadcast a pre-recorded video of Thomas Pesquet, on a mission since April in the International Space Station, 400 km from Earth.

“It is Thomas Pesquet who chose this classic of French literature”, explains the author Rachid Santaki, founder of the giant dictation.

“We’re going to make people dream!”

“By taking dictation into space, we will make people dream!”, Enthuses the writer, anxious to overcome the “trauma” that may have been for some of the exercise on the benches of the school.

“I really like the principle of making fun, I hope, an exercise which sometimes has a bad reputation”, abounds Thomas Pesquet in a message from the ISS. The astronaut confides having read at the age of 20 years “A dam against the Pacific”, published in 1950. “Participating in the dictation of space, that makes me want to reread it with my eyes of today , to see how the metaphor of the dam resonates in me now “.

For eight years, Rachid Santaki, author of black novels (including “The Angels dress in caillera”) has “taken dictation out of school” to decline it in improbable places and make it a popular and “grandiose” exercise. . The novelist has already read more than 500 texts in prisons, urban districts, at the Stade de France, but also on social networks and on the radio.

With AFP