What is something said about you in your job that particularly touches you?
I like the idea that people can say about me that I am unclassifiable.

Who are the people who constitute references for you in your profession or in life?
in my life, my absolute reference is my mother. she is for me a woman whose courage inspires me every day and whose entire life is an inspiration. my parents arrived in France around fifty years ago. we cannot measure the adventure that immigration is. my mother and my father are figures who inspire me enormously because they truly succeeded in building something here. They notably showed a lot of courage throughout their lives.

what is important in your life?
integrity and love are two things that hold weight for me. integrity firstly, because it is important to have a base of values ​​and not to betray them; important to be true to oneself and to be driven by values ​​that we respect, and which frame us. it's fundamental for me. then love because it’s what makes us stand, quite simply. love, affection, it's really central for me, it's what allows me to get up in the morning, go to bed at night and move forward knowing for whom and why we move forward.

what was your biggest challenge or your greatest pride?
If there is one thing that makes me proud, it is to have managed to remain myself in a context that was still quite hostile.

the big challenge was having changed careers, becoming a journalist at 30 and entering a world which was not the one in which one might have expected me. in terms of cultural references and social environment it is a world that was foreign to me and into which I finally entered through the front door.

It was a real challenge to learn at a phenomenal speed, to realize that I knew how to write and to have learned how to make films. I assimilated many things very quickly and largely in a self-taught manner even as I entered an environment very different from my original environment. I am proud of not having transformed myself, of not having changed my fundamental base to be able to adapt to this environment which was different from the one in which I had evolved until then.

What is the gift you would like to receive soon?
a massage ! I hope this will be heard :)

what gift do you give to someone you love?
I really like offering treatments or massages and of course books. I think the gift I give the most is books. I have a lot of fun identifying the book that will appeal to different people.

do you have a favorite author about this?
there are two Senegalese authors that I adore, Mariama Ba and Ousmane Sembene. These are two authors who are in the Senegalese school curriculum and whom I really like to reread. Ba is an author who wrote such a long letter in the early eighties, a founding work of French-speaking African feminism and every time I read it, even when I read it now, I still find it relevant. it's quite incredible in its accuracy and insight. as for Ousmane Sembene, who is both a filmmaker, with a first African feature film in 1966, and an author, he notably wrote a book called Les bouts de bois de Dieu, and which is also in the school curriculum at Senegal. His work depicts the colonial issues of Senegalese society, in a very fair manner, both in his works and in his cinema. These are authors that I admire enormously.

what is your favorite object? how much does he weigh ?
I have a bracelet, which you took a photo of, bearing my first name. I have had this bracelet for about 25 years. There is a tradition in Senegal: children are offered silver bracelets that cross and uncross as they grow.
I first had a first bracelet without a name that I kept until I was 20, then I was given this one later. It is made of silver and my first name is written on it in gold letters. I keep it on all the time, I almost never take it off, it goes with me everywhere

what is your approach to jewelry? how do you wear them? What does it give you to wear jewelry?
It's funny that I wear so much jewelry because that wasn't always the case, even though I grew up with a mother who adored it.

in its original culture, this is something very important for women. owning jewelry and gold is a way of building capital. my mother always loved jewelry while I was not interested in it when I was younger. It was really after cutting my hair really short that I felt the need to dress my face with earrings and that's really when it started. It's a way of adorning a face and the rings bring elegance to the gesture.

I like to wear several rings I appreciate voluminous earrings. These are elements socially associated with femininity which are not often present in professions considered to be very serious. we tend to think that it is frivolous to wear large earrings. In my opinion, it is interesting to bring this element associated with a slightly superficial aesthetic, into somewhat austere places.

a favorite place to find you?
at the bakery (laughs)! Near my house, there is a bakery that regularly offers new pastries. I go there every day to see if there's something new that I haven't tried yet... it's really the place in my neighborhood where you can find me the easiest.

What did you like about the Le Gram creations?
I really like things that intersect, I find the elements that intertwine very pretty, it's really super beautiful. I also really like silver, it’s what I wear most often.

there is really a very fine and very elegant dimension in these creations and in the interlacing chains which intersect, there is a very beautiful symbolism.

and if le gramme was a book then… what would it be?
more than a book, I would say that you would be Jiro Taniguchi, the manga author. He has this very unique universe, both minimalist and intense. I'm a big admirer of his work, which basically looks a bit like le gramme.