past few years I constantly point out the uniqueness of writing Pia Petersen, writer of Danish origin who writes in French. Several of his books have been published, including A window at random and Yuri Editions Actes Sud. His writing tight and nervous rehabilitates the psychological novel. Pia Petersen has avoid the pitfalls of self-centered novel. Even engaging in a self-fiction, she can embrace the world, move the plant geography of the story and sets a world where the Other is more than this. This is true of his latest novel just out, A pound of flesh (Actes Sud). Romance of the "lapse", the grandeur and decadence of the French Roman who in the twilight of his fall, reviewing its moments of glory, his wanderings in American cities (New York, Los Angeles ...), the sequins, women's meetings, the ease that procured money ... This is also in New York a few years later, around a poker game, that are found Roman and his "band". All the characters have in common the cracks of life. They know what the ruin and the "metaphysics of money." And if they do not know, they are not far from suffering the blade of the economic crisis. Roman, struck by a heart attack on a sofa, revisits the paths of his life and never take your eyes he scrutinizes his band with the patience of an entomologist. The group is surprised by the arrival of three gangsters. A question of debt, big money. And in this environment of the underworld we know how to resolve conflicts. We are entering into a camera and icy when the trap closes on the characters between cigarette smoke and smell of alcohol. Pia's writing us the throat and stomach. Language becomes a spark. They are often repeated, face constantly, constantly giving the reader the feeling that at any moment the world will collapse and everything will start from the sofa where Roman writhes in pain. Very cinematic images ...
Part of this book was written with me in Los Angeles. I then received Pia who has resided in California for a week. We visited the California cities: Venice, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, downtown Los Angeles and Malibu. Pia I invited to attend one of my classes at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). I was never imagined that my shadow would cross the pages of a pound of flesh . Pia told me nothing. And I found these lines:
" One night in Venice, he met a French writer who worked university as a professor of Francophone literature. His name was Alain Mabanckou. He said that a writer should look at globalization and he invited Roman to come and hear one of his classes. Romain often encountered in the nightclubs of Venice. Alain always wore a cap and luxury shoes. Alain also liked to hang out at night, across town, prowling the bars and clubs. He said he was tracking his labor, characters that emerged, atmospheres that stood out bits of dialogue and sometimes very colorful [...] He had a head of gangster, is Roman had said that on seeing him, but he was a writer and they were discussing literature with a drink. Roman invited him to parties but Alain refused. He was tracking his subjects, but he loved the solitude, it was a loudmouth who was never afraid to go on the forehead and shaking ideas but was also reserved and shy ... "
Pia Petersen A pound of flesh , ed. Actes Sud, Paris, 2010, 317p. 22 euros
Play Pia Interview on RFI: http://www.rfi.fr/contenu/20100201-1-pia-petersen 
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