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 Open access under:
CC BY 4.0

A contribution to: Science and Literature

Edited by Alex Stuart and Jessica Goodman

MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 7

Modern Humanities Research Association

open

Abstract.  Belgian writer and journalist Elisa Brune (b.1966) is a versatile writer who has published in many genres (epistolary, documentary, biographic, scientific etc.) and, in most of her narratives, either adds a new twist to the genre in which she is writing, or combines several disciplines. In the two novels under consideration in this article, she combines literary creativity and scientific knowledge with the aim of popularising science, as is clear from her statement that it is ‘une motivation majeure que d’essayer de partager une passion qui est la mienne’. She does so by centring her plots around the life of a man who becomes a scientist, and thus including elements of scientific discourse throughout the text. In Petite révision du ciel and its sequel Les Jupiters chauds, the main character Vincent turns his life around and goes from being employed by an insurance company to becoming an astrophysicist. Although she acknowledges she is not the only one to do so, Elisa Brune is keen to mix science and literary writing, explaining that ‘le romancier prend la liberté de [...] rassemble[r] dans un même espace narratif des disciplines que l’organisation académique sépare complètement’. This article gives a brief overview of these two novels, examining how successfully science has been included in them and how effective both narratives are at popularising science.

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