When my sister was born, I was a little under four years old. I was asked if I was happy. I replied (I learned) that I had declared myself happy "to have a turtle and a little sister". Nothing but banal. When my youngest brother was born, the youngest of our family, I was, I remember, very happy. It was the night of St. John in 1939. He committed suicide in 1961. He was the favorite, I think, I think I always thought of my mother. Maybe other members of our family. I do not know. How to do ? One solution, only one: to be a youngest. Autobiographical is this novel, this draft novel , therefore, as I have just decided; likewise every novel is an autobiography of the one who gives it its name. Writing and publishing one's autobiography makes little sense. Why would there be only one? If one were to be written every ten years, for example, it would be less of a ridiculous pretense to convey to the world the truth about oneself. All the autobiographies I know claim that. I do not have time, I will not have time to strive for excellence in the composition of my novel. I know that it is necessary that the chapters should follow each other and not be alike, while being confined to reasonable dimensions, perhaps pre-established by the Author, who, however, can neither be Diderot nor Stendhal , who should not try to play Monsieur de Chateaubriand or Christine Angot, although speaking, like them, of me and still of me.--Translation of page 4 by Seuil.