Her name was Monique Berthault.

My mother's name was Monique, she was French. Born in 1943, she studied nursing in the city of Tours, had met my father in 1969 by correspondence. The two, both used to hospitals, had begun to exchange letters, then met each other in person and then married. Perhaps the worst choice of her life. Very quickly, they began to adopt 1,2,3,4,5 children. Another bad choice because they had no money.

As far as I can remember I have never seen her happy. As far as I can remember, I was an unhappy child. My mother died at the age of 49 from cirrhosis, I was 17. I never knew who she really was because I always saw her as an alcoholic and abusive mother.

Yet it has been the project for me for 10 years to write this book to try to find out who she was. I feel the need, however, to pay homage to a woman who has suffered most of her life, who I understand today as a mother, had a deep desire to do well but who unfortunately really failed. The wound she left in my life cannot be repaired. nonetheless, as a woman, mother and writer and, on the contrary of her, a survivor of this tragedy that binds us, it is my duty to find out who she was and to understand why. Why did all this happen? how has it been conditioned?

I would like to write a book that bears her name. I want to make it exist, I want to give it this existence that it did not have, through a book. because I think that like lots of women, she was the victim of a bad period for women like her, of humble origins with limited means of thought and action.

The book will be divided into four parts.

The story of a mother in France in the 40s, then in Belgium in the 60s and 70s before being a mother, based on documented research: in this part I try to draw an “objective” portrait of her before meeting my father and to move to Belgium, and then of her who becomes a mother.

The story of mother as mother in Belgium based on memories of people still alive: in this part I try to paint a portrait of her only through the memories of these people, putting my own aside.

My story is based on my childhood memories in the Central region.

A certain history of the Center region in the 80s and 90s (years from my childhood until his death).

Writing residency to write a book about my mother

The publications