to your pens! On Sunday, Thomas Pesquet will read a giant dictation from space

Space and Words lovers are invited on Sunday 5th September to participate in Giant Dictation, which will be It was read in orbit by French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and resent it At the Air and Space Museum in Le Bourgetnear Paris.

About 500 people of all ages, provided with newspaper and pen, are expected to write, at the dictation of the astronaut, an excerpt from Marguerite Duras’ novel. Dam on the Pacific OceanExplain to the organizers of this outdoor event.

15 hours, On the exhibition stand where tables and chairs will be installed, a giant screen will broadcast a pre-recorded video of Thomas Pesquet, on a mission since April on the International Space Station, 400 kilometers from Earth.

“We will make people dream!”

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Thomas Pesquet chose this classic French literature The novelist explains Rachid Santaki, Founder giant spell. For eight years, this author of black novels (including Angels wear curd) made “Take the dictation from school” to reject it in unlikely places and make it a common exercise The “Great”: read more than 500 texts In correctional institutions, from urban neighborhoods, at the Stade de France, but also On social networks And on the radio.

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By taking dictation into space, we will make people dream! ‘, the writer gets excited, eager to conquer’
shock “What might it be for some rehearsing on the school bench? “
I really like the principle of irony – I wish – an exercise that sometimes has a bad reputation The 43-year-old astronaut abounds in his message.

Thomas Pesquet says he read at the age of twenty Dam on the Pacific OceanIt was published in 1950.
Participating in the dictation of space makes me want to read it again with my own eyes today, to see how the metaphor of the dam reverberates in me now. »

After his first reading of the excerpt (about 700 characters), Rachid Santaky will deal with the second stanza, in slow flow, before a self-correcting session. The event will be broadcast on Saturday 11th September at 5pm on its radio show France culture.