Gallimard – 2026

! Only in french !

“What they saw that day was so incredible that they couldn’t explain it; the children were called liars and the adults were called fabulists. Even the police squad, who arrived in large numbers to disperse the crowd and issue citations to the troublemakers, stood still and took off their caps. The sights were magnificent. In the end, the angel and the donkey, motionless on the rope, balanced on top of each other, vibrated silently in unison.”

A mute girl runs away from her uncle’s house after setting it on fire and takes refuge in the forest, accompanied by her donkey. One encounter leads to another, and they end up in Paris, joining a troupe of street performers, the Baladins du Temple. From Place Saint-Eustache to Montparnasse, under the leadership of the Admiral, the members of this joyful tribe of misfits put on street performances, beg for money, and defy bourgeois order. Renamed Cascabelle, the teenager will gather their confidences, discover freedom, and share their excesses, dreams, and sorrows…
With Les cogne-trottoirs, a coming-of-age novel featuring the touching duo of a tightrope-walking donkey and a girl who has been robbed of her voice by tragedy, Bartabas has written a hallucinatory, lyrical and cheeky first novel in a dazzling style.

* Available in our store * ! Only in french !

* Read excerpts on the Gallimard website *

Gallimard – 2024

In 1990, Bartabas meets Pina Bausch. They become friends and he introduces her to the horse Micha Figa, which he says is the perfect partner for revealing the dancer’s profound personality. This is the beginning of an initiatory adventure without equal, which will last more than ten years. During these stolen nights, through their occasional encounters, Pina Bausch and Micha Figa forge a bond that should have resulted in a much anticipated show. Life has wanted otherwise.
Here remain moments of grace that have escaped the spotlight, of which Bartabas, their the only witness, gives us the hallucinated story. Un geste vers le bas, a homage from one artist to another, takes us behind the scenes of creation and tells us of the irrational and sublime that can be played between man and animal.

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* Read extracts on Gallimard  website*

Gallimard – 2022

“At night the animal looks at me and I read in its eyes noble stories, songs inviting me to travel.”

Through the twenty-two cantos that make up these Cantiques du corbeau, Bartabas offers a fantastical account of the origins of humanity. In a dreamt-out prehistory, where men and beasts are one and are in turn prey and predators, we see man acquiring the faculties that will lead him to enslave the earth and the animal kingdom.
A superb poetic meditation on the place of man among the living.

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* Read extracts on Gallimard website *

Gallimard – 2020

One was saved at the last moment from the slaughterhouse, another left by a torero in disarray, yet another, bought for a handful of pesetas from a dirty maquilador: all these horses, Bartabas welcomed them into his tribe, to become their disciple as much as their master. To some, he offered a lead role of choice in his shows without ever performing them; with several, he accomplished feats that no squire had succeeded before him. They are called Zingaro, Quixote, Dolaci, Felix, Horizonte, Caravaggio… For the first time, Bartabas tells us about the horses that have marked his life. In this book, poetic and physical, which offers the portrait of a total artist, he takes us behind the scenes of his theatre, and offers his fellow travellers their most beautiful act.

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Read extracts on Gallimard website *

* Also available in paperback and audiobook *

Autrement – 2012

Bartabas signs a “Manifesto for an artist’s life” and invites 12 personalities… to talk about it alongside him. Far from the hippie cliché, this Manifeste pour la vie d’artiste is based on the strong idea of the artistic commitment. It reveals how and to what extent the dedication of an artist to his work can change his way of life, his daily life, his intimate life. This artistic commitment, both physical and spiritual, implies everyday ethics and a non-compromise investment. This artistic commitment influences artists’ lifestyles and art, each in its own way.

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