Introduction

It was with Des anges mineurs, ¹ published in 1999, that Antoine Volodine was hailed by French critics. The writer lives in Orléans, and dreams his worlds from there, where, like a Chinese novel, he leads the regimented life of a Kung Fu master exiled in his province. He divides his time between writing, studying languages, and preparing for his travels. He has never wavered from this life. For a while, publication did not even seem necessary to him. One of his aspirations is to finish his work and then his life in the colorful and noisy anonymity of a Chinese city neighborhood.