Through his Vies miniscules, Pierre Michon revisits the parable of the prodigal son in the sense of a two-fold failure, both filial and paternal. A major cultural model for the father / son relationship in the West, the Biblical text has value as an operational model that the narrator reinvests to give meaning to the destiny of “miniscules” as much as his own story. The prodigal son emerges as a paradigmatic figure that writing is partially able to redeem through its oblatory dimension.
