Life, writers, and coffee—vast topics, yet all three cinched together can look like the following:
- in the 2007 book Mon père (textes inédits recueillis par Leïla Sebbar, coordonnés par Behja Traversac, mis en page par Marie-Noël Arras), a collection of writings by Maghrebian women about their fathers, “La demande en mariage” by Dany Toubiana (b. 1948) is a piece in which the author mentions how skipping classes to have coffee with friends in her late teens was when she began remaking her world, leading to other decisions that would swerve away from her conservative father’s expectations
- when Alain Stanké (b. 1934), who worked in various media positions, would visit the influential writer Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983) near the end of her life, he often found himself making coffee for her, and looking back he wonders about the reason that she gave for not making it herself—click here for the chapter about her in his book Occasions de bonheur (2009)
- in Journal d’un écrivain en pyjama (2013), Dany Laferrière (b. 1953) talks of how passersby would open up to his grandmother who gave them a cup of coffee—click here for his entry “La tasse de café”
Maison de Honoré Balzac [sic] [Paris, 16e] : encrier et cafetière : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]. 1909. Bibliothèque nationale de France → https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53109890b
