The Musée des Confluences, in Lyon, has launched a collection entitled "Récits d’objets" (Tales of Objects) over the past few years. It consists of asking a writer to choose an object of his or her choice from the museum’s collections to inspire him or her to write a text in the form of his or her choice. From May 2020, Cambourakis Editions will join forces with the Musée des Confluences to co-publish this collection at the rate of two titles per year.
Simonetta Greggio inaugurates this partnership with The Dancing Bear, inspired by an Inuit statuette. In this extremely well-documented short novel, she imagines the meeting of an Inuit man and a bear. An a priori frightening confrontation that turns into fascination and deep mutual respect since, after confronting and hurting each other, man and bear will cohabit and survive one thanks to the other. A text imbued with the customs and beliefs of this population, which underlines the difference in lifestyles between Westerners and Inuit but also between an older generation seeking a form of communion with nature and animals and the young, much more distrustful and distant.
