Guillaume Gallienne lifts the veil on his heritage in a powerful book
A sensitive, unexpected and sometimes hilarious tale, Guillaume Gallienne’s first book examines heritage, filiation and memory.
A first novel in the footsteps of the past
With Le Buveur de brume, published on May 7 in Stock‘s Ma nuit au musée collection, Guillaume Gallienne explores an intimate, visceral terrain: his family heritage. It’s not an autobiography in the strict sense of the word, but an initiation tale, funny, tragic and disarmingly honest. The book opens with a rocky misunderstanding at the National Museum in Tbilisi, where the actor thought he was spending an inspired night under the portrait of his Georgian great-grandmother, Mélita Cholokachvili. The painting having been moved, an acidic and burlesque sleepless night begins – the starting point for an unexpected introspection.
A father, angers, silences to break
This story brings to light a long-suppressed anger linked to an authoritarian father figure, from which Gallienne frees himself during a landmark trip at the age of 23. This scene of family confrontation acts as a narrative key, triggering the actor to speak out in a way he had never dared before. We discover a hypersensitive child in search of love, who escapes into the imaginary world to survive.
A vibrant tribute to the women who shaped him
But Le Buveur de brume is not about settling scores. Above all, it’s a declaration of love to the women in his life. To his grandmothers, Cai and Melita, true guardian figures. To his mother, to whom he confided an “I love you” on his wedding day. To his wife, Amandine, with whom he learns to love himself. And to the absent ones, like his cousin Alicia, whose poems he published in 2020.
Transmission and memory: a committed literary act
Guillaume Gallienne has written a deeply personal text, full of humor, tenderness and melancholy, dedicated to his son Tado. A way of passing on, again and again. A work of reparation as much as gratitude.
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