David Djaïz turns a true story of mass extermination into a novel about method
In "La méthode," the writer and essayist recounts the real case of a scientist tasked with exterminating the stray dogs of Constantinople, using it to probe how science without conscience can slide into bureaucratic cruelty.
David Djaïz was a guest on France Culture's literature program on October 31 to discuss his novel "La méthode," according to the broadcaster. The book draws on a true episode: a scientist put in charge of exterminating the stray dogs of Constantinople.
According to France Culture, the novel asks how a scientific method can turn into an instrument of barbarity, following the mechanics of a project that treats living creatures as a problem to be solved by procedure. The broadcaster describes it as a book about science without conscience, about bureaucracy, and about the machinery that makes mass killing possible.
Djaïz is known primarily as an essayist working on questions of political economy and the state; "La méthode" marks him moving into fiction with this story, per the program's own framing. No publisher, release date or further plot detail was given in the source material.
Sources
This article was written from these reports.