Beyond good and evil, the fait divers as narrative structure Duras as hermeneut of the Berthaud case

In “Nadine d’Orange,” a text published in the 1980 novel Les Yeux verts (Green Eyes) and in Outside (1981), Marguerite Duras revisits a 1961 article about the Berthaud case. Duras’ highly subjective take on the fait divers seems to exonerate the accused, and to reverse the axiology, by shifting the perspective to reframe Berthaud’s suicide as the focus. In its very construction, Duras’ retelling of the fait divers is therefore highly influenced by fiction.