All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [186]
In her absence (few people knew that she was suffering from cancer), Claude Durand was my editor for legends of Our Time. Then Paul Flamands son Bruno took over. He became my editor, my ally. Serious, introspective, and meticulous, he could do what many editors cannot: identify with the book rather than its author. I don’t know how he managed to understand as well as he did my works on the Bible and its interpretations, the Talmud and its commentaries, Hasidism and its mysterious masters. In the end he assimilated Hebrew texts (in translation, of course) better than certain Jewish thinkers. We were bound by a creative complicity. Even when I felt compelled to leave Le Seuil (temporarily), our relationship endured.
It was the war in Lebanon that brought me into conflict with Le Seuil. Paul Flamand had retired and Michel Chodkiewicz, his successor, published an outrageous letter in Le Monde in which he accused Israel of genocide. It was the summer of 1982, early in the war. Since he identified himself as the director of Le Seuil, Chodkiewicz effectively committed the firm to his position, or at least that was my view of the matter. I asked him to issue not a retraction but a correction, one that would explain his thought in more detail, without altering his political or religious philosophy with regard to Israel and the Palestinians (a Catholic by birth, he had converted to Islam). Essentially, I asked for a few lines saying more or less that in the heat of passion he had used a word that offended certain people. Michel categorically refused, saying he believed in freedom of expression. I replied that the word “genocide” must be used with extreme caution. Did he really think that Israel’s aim was to exterminate the entire Palestinian people? I was saddened by Michel’s obstinacy Our relations had always been excellent. We shared a love for mysticism, and I admired and respected his knowledge and integrity. Why was he suddenly so inflexible? François Wahl arranged for me to attend a meeting of Seuil’s editorial committee. I knew all its members and explained to them that I had been part of the house for more than twenty years and had never asked for anything. But this was a slur on the Jewish people’s honor. With the exception of a young woman—Jewish—they all agreed. They tried to persuade Michel, who remained inflexible. After seven months of painful discussions I decided to leave—but made no public statements. I was too attached to Le Seuil to wish to harm it.
Antoine Gallimard and Bernard Henri-Levy (on behalf of Grasset) came to see me in New York in the following weeks. Gallimard’s prestige is unequaled, and Antoine and I quickly established a good rapport. I appreciated his dynamism and his devotion to his authors, as well as his vision of the role of literature in society and his concept of friendship. But I was afraid of the size of his firm. On the other hand, Grasset, for me at that time, was Bernard, whom I had known since we met on the Cambodian border, where we both took part in the March Against Hunger. I remembered that when I had shown him the proofs of Paroles d’étranger, he told me it was that work that had inspired him to write his first novel. Bernard introduced me to Jean-Claude Fasquelle, whose strong character and discretion I came to admire. He spoke little, but his silences were eloquent. His wife, Nikki, a magazine publisher, has the keenest sense of humor in the small world of Parisian publishing.
My wife Marion and I spent hours discussing the merits of the two houses with