'I'm Attracted to People Who Are Unhinged' - Oscar Coop-Phane on Zenith Hotel

Oscar Coop-Phane wrote his first novel, Zenith Hotel, when he was 20 years old. The novel won the prestigious Prix de Flore, and has been published this month by Arcadia, with a translation by Ros Schwartz (review here). The book is narrated by Nanou, a Parisian prostitute. Rather than recounting the details of her own life, she instead discusses the lives of her clients, revealing a mass of downtrodden and unremarkable characters, of a type rarely glimpsed in literature. Since writing Zenith Hotel, Coop-Phane has completed two more novels, Berlin, Tomorrow (which will be released in translation by Arcadia in 2015), and Octobre, due later this year (and in the UK through Arcadia in 2016). Here, he speaks to Tom Bowen about the creation of Zenith Hotel, his writing habits and loneliness.

01. You were quite young when you wrote this book, do you think your age had any impact on how it was received, positively or negatively? 

I didn’t really think about it. That said, I do think it's easier to be considered a 'young writer'. It is a romantic cliché which people like. 

02. Loneliness, and the idea of being comfortable with oneself, is a recurrent theme in the book, would you care to expand upon this?

It was an obsession of mine at the time: loneliness and the particular kind we feel when surrounded by others; Guy Debord's 'lonely crowds'. This idea that we only feel lonely when we're with others, because they see us to be alone; loneliness does not exist in situations of isolation or withdrawal.

03. The structure of the novel is very interesting, would you be able to elaborate on the inspiration behind this?

Initially I wanted to write a novel about Emmanuel (one of the characters). It soon became clear that I couldn’t manage it, so I began to outline some of the other characters. And then the idea of the prostitute came to me, and it was the glue that held them all together.

04. How do you feel about the climate for young writers at the moment? In your opinion is the atmosphere ripe for creativity or is it simply too hard to make a living as a professional writer at the moment?

I wouldn't say the atmosphere was ripe for creativity exactly. It's certainly not an easy time. It's commonly accepted that a writer cannot make a living from writing. As though it weren't a 'real' profession. But there's certainly nothing new about that... Yet what interests me about writing is precisely that it is a profession, a craft. For me it could never be a pastime or something I do on the side. I like literature that exists at the sake of everything else. I've had different jobs to pay the bills; I was never interested in them, I never 'flourished', as they say in the world of work. At best, a job can provide material for a novel.

05. Why did you choose the figure of a prostitute for your narrator?

I can't really remember. At first she was a waitress. There's something fascinating about prostitution (bodies, power, etc.) plus it's also highly symbolic in literature. I enjoyed playing around with those references. I’m attracted to people who are unhinged, lost. In life, and in literature too.


06. Which modern authors do you enjoy reading?

It’s probably a ridiculous snobbery, but I really only read dead writers. Emmanuel Bove, Henri Calet, Georges Hyvernaud, Eugène Dabit, Raymond Guérin, Louis Calaferte, Charles-Louis Philippe – all of the forgotten French literature of the first half of the 20th century.

07. What is your writing routine like?


I always write in the morning. I write every day – for three hours at the most, accompanied by coffee, music and cigarettes.


08. What are you working on next?



My third novel, Octobre, is out in September! [His second novel, Tomorrow, Berlin, will be published by Arcadia in English in 2015]. I moved to Brussels, to try to start a family, and our first baby is due in April. It was difficult to admit this was my ambition for a while, but now I don't mind saying that I aspire to something like the bourgeois life. Living near the one I love, with our child, and to have the freedom to work on my little notebooks serenely.

Many thanks to Tom Bowen for devising the questions, and translating Oscar's responses, and to Helen Bird of The Paris Vegan for extra assistance with the translations.