Télérama is a weekly french magazine focused on cultural topics (circulation is about 700 000).

I’ve been a reader for a long time when I lived in Paris and in my opinion it’s one of the best magazines in France. And actually pictures, often taken by Lea Crespi, Patrick Swirc or Grégoire Alexandre, are still of a great quality.

So I was really pleased when they called me for two assignments here in Japan.

The first one was the portrait of Jakucho Setouchi, a 87-year-old buddhist nun. She’s also a famous writer. In 2008, she adapted the “Genji Monogatari”, a eleventh century Japanese novel, to a “Keitai Shosetsu”, a cellphone novel very popular amongst teenage girls. It was a big success online and she had to reveal herself. The novel is now published as a book.

In the beginnning of November, I made the journey to her place in Sagano, northern Kyoto. The neighborhood of her temple was quite spectacular with bamboo forests and autumn leaves. I spent a couple of hours with her . She’s really open-minded and smart. We talked about French women writers, like Françoise Sagan. We had tea and cofee. Oh, yes, I also took a few pictures…

The story is published this week in Télérama.

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