Julia Malye: “I wanted to approach colonialism from the perspective of women’s domestic intimacy.”

Julia Malye (Paris, 1994) is a unique example of a bilingual writer, fluent in English and French, a precocious talent honed at American universities. Her novel Louisiana , a bestseller in France, has now been published in Spanish (Salamandra) and Catalan ( Les noies de Louisiana , Grup 62). The story is inspired by a little-known true event: the journey to North America of ninety inmates of the Salpêtriere (a hospital, prison, reformatory, and orphanage in Paris) in 1720. The goal was to marry them off to colonists so they would have children and help expand the French presence. Bayle, who teaches fiction at Sciences Po, worked on the project for eight years, where she managed to weave together a compelling, multidimensional, and richly descriptive narrative that explores the feminine universe in very harsh circumstances, their relationships with native tribes, and the reality of slavery. Part of the French version was written in Vil·la Joana, in Vallvidrera, during a residency grant.

Studies to become an author At university you learn to rewrite. It is impossible to write a novel without rewriting it.

You studied creative writing. Did that help or complicate your work?

It definitely helped me. When I arrived in Oregon and completed a master's degree in creative writing, I had already published two books and was finishing my third novel. Here in France, people think writing can't be taught. I think it's completely silly because all the other arts are taught. They think a writer has to have inspiration fall upon their head. It bothers me because it paints a very different picture of what this craft is all about. In reality, it's a lot of work and a few intuitions. That's why I made a ton of different versions, up to 15.

Why so many? Was she dissatisfied? Was she improving?

Yes, a bit of everything. I first wrote this book in English. I sent the text to American agents. Their suggestions were very helpful. In the first version, there were ten characters. They told me there were too many and that they had to be eliminated.

So, being a writer is also learned at university, academically? Isn't it just talent and inspiration?

You learn to rewrite. I believe writing begins when you rewrite. I find it impossible to write a novel without rewriting it. It's a task of choosing what to keep and what to discard. Writing courses provide something that's very difficult to find in life: the time to write and a very attentive audience of writers who can help you.

It has a very journalistic style, with many descriptions, many details of nature, of the weather.

My father is a journalist. I think I need to visualize where I am, the sensations, what I see, what I hear. They're like direct bridges between the 21st century and the 18th century, in this case. It was very important for me to seek out these kinds of details. I found them when I traveled to New Orleans and when I read testimonies. It's hard to find details about routine, the very small things in life that history ignores.

It's a novel about colonialism. How did you approach it?

I wanted to write about this period but with a different perspective, especially from the perspective of women. Many stories about colonialism have been written in the 19th and 20th centuries, from the perspective of male protagonists. They were adventure books, but they aren't. What's happening is horrible. Writing about women meant writing about a very different space, what happens behind closed doors, the intimacy of the domestic space.

Reading this book, you'd think women, at least in the West, have never lived better than they do today. Do you agree?

Ha ha, yes, but the struggle continues. Rights are always at risk.

The husbands in the novel aren't very bad, except for one, who beats his wife. They're quite good and reasonable for that time period.

Yes, it was very important to me because this book is about women, but I also wanted to feature nuanced male protagonists, who have gray areas. I think it's in that gray area that writing and literature thrive. I'm sure some of these women married bad men. There wasn't love, but it was a way to survive together in hostile territory. Maybe some fell in love. Anything is possible. It was a trap to describe all these male characters as violent.

There's a constant presence of illness. Did you want to underline the harshness of the times?

Illness is something else the settlers didn't control in that territory. And it's something that entered that domestic space. When writing about women, the body is an omnipresent theme.

Are you referring to births?

Yes, there's something very cyclical about a woman's body. It constantly draws your attention. That, and the fact that she can't be a mother, as in Charlotte's case. Her mission was to bear children for the colony, and she wonders who she is if the role society assigns her isn't capable of fulfilling it. Motherhood is one of the themes that transcends centuries and gender.