Interviews To Literature (Essay Series 19)

Royer's role here is similar to a translator's, where confidences and revelations from the artists he has talked to are translated into these texts he calls 'interviews to literature'. He polishes, he evaluates, he chooses, he animates -- in short, doing what a translator does to make the translated text into a reality in its own right, separate from yet intimately linked to the original. The texts here allow us to see the artists not only in their guarded moments -- when they make oft-uttered statements they hope the world will read and appreciate -- but especially in their unguarded, relaxed moments when we get a glimpse of the private person, the inner being it is a privilege to discover. Jean Royer has the gift of brilliantly showing us these moments and shaping them into unforgettable texts that remain in the mind as only literature can do. -- Daniel Sloate."