Abstract: Georges Higgins, an English journalist writing in French, leads an anachronistic literary investigation when war has already broken out. In 1940, he met foreign authors writing in French. His interviews focus on what prompted them to choose the French language. The answers are as eclectic as these authors, ranging from the famous Kessel and Troyat, to the promising people who will be silent after the war Malaquais and Némirovsky, to the forgotten Finbert and Haïk.
