The writer Bernard Werber, author of ‘Les Fourmis’, was a guest on "Un dimanche à la campagne" on 11/30/2025 on France 2. He shared rare insights about his childhood and his illness. Thus, he explained how these experiences fueled his imagination. As La Voix de l’arbre is released and he presents V.I.E in Reims and then Avignon, he calmly connects personal destiny, prolific work, and direct connection with the public.
In the attic, a rare word
The moment resembles a scene from a novel: soft light, exposed beams, a chair where Bernard Werber sits. Facing Frédéric Lopez, he agrees to open doors that have remained closed. This episode of Un dimanche à la campagne aired on 11/30/2025 sets a simple framework: three guests, time, and the promise of an unhurried conversation. The writer participates, without unnecessary detours, and recounts what has shaped his work as much as his life.
The illness recounted, the impetus for writing
He is about nine years old when his back stiffens as he gets out of bed. He crawls out of his room, then begins the rounds of doctors. At the time, the diagnosis falls: ankylosing spondylitis. According to the author, the doctor delivers a phrase that remains engraved: "each passing year brings me closer to total disability." Far from crushing the child, this verdict acts as a trigger. Reading becomes a refuge, then a laboratory. Inventing worlds appears as a way to loosen the grip of reality, and soon writing becomes imperative.
This chronic inflammatory disease, which notably affects the spine, is better known and managed today; it is not limited to an inevitable trajectory. Here, the writer recalls a childhood memory, a shock, and how he converted it into creative momentum. The fact is central: for Werber, imagination is not an escape, it is a response.
A direct connection with the public
Since his beginnings, Werber has claimed a very physical relationship with his readership. Signings, shows, meetings: all extensions of the same conversation. He finds it amusing: novels, stages, and airwaves – radios – form a single thread. Thus, this thread is stretched towards those who have been reading him for decades. The author speaks of a "community of imaginations": one enters through the book Les Fourmis. Then, one returns through the cycles of angels, gods, or cats. Moreover, one stays for the questions raised, such as the afterlife. Additionally, there is the meaning of life and the place of humans among other living beings.
The rumor of adaptations of Les Fourmis has punctuated the years, a sign of a powerful visual imagination.
The current events of a prolific author
More than thirty years after Les Fourmis (1991), a cult science fiction novel, his library has expanded. Indeed, it now includes cycles and standalone novels. Autumn 2025 marks a new stage with La Voix de l’arbre, released on 10/01/2025 by Albin Michel. The story embraces an idea dear to him: what if trees were witnesses, partners, interlocutors? The book confirms an almost annual pace and a taste for hybridizing genres – science, thriller, philosophy-fiction.
For the editorial notice and practical information, consult the publisher’s page: Albin Michel – La Voix de l’arbre.
On stage: from storytelling to guided experience
Writing is not enough for him. For several years, Werber has been taking the stage with a setup that has evolved from storytelling to a collective guided meditation. Initially titled Voyage intérieur, the show becomes V.I.E – Voyage Intérieur Expérimental. Principle: the audience closes their eyes, follows the voice, listens to the harp, visualizes scenes from the past, present, and future. No illusionism: a simple, participatory proposal that makes the audience an actor.
At the end of November 2025, two events marked the agenda. On 11/26/2025, at the Théâtre du Manège in Reims, a V.I.E session is part of the Charabia Festival; a meeting precedes the evening at the Jean-Falala media library. Three days later, on 11/29/2025, Avignon hosts a scenic conversation at the Théâtre du Chêne noir: a way to tell his journey, illuminate his choices, share the backstage of a fiction craftsman.
Official information: Charabia Festival – V.I.E; Théâtre du Chêne noir – Rendez-vous du Chêne.
What the show reveals
Un dimanche à la campagne is not a confessional show. The television setup – conversations, cooking workshop, walk – seeks a truth of atmosphere. In this context, Werber agrees to name a fragility that has shaped his strength. He clearly links this childhood episode to the construction of his universes: parallel worlds, bridges between species, systems where humans are not the sole center. The televised interview of autumn 2025 acts as a clarification, recalling the lasting impact of the book Les Fourmis.
The witness Werber also reminds us how much personal narrative can illuminate the work without exhausting it. The doctor’s phrase from the time, regardless of its medical relevance today, becomes a narrative engine. It feeds characters grappling with the invisible. Moreover, it proposes enigmas that question knowledge and belief. Furthermore, it creates story architectures where curiosity remains the primary resource.
International success, old loyalties
Werber is credited with lasting popularity abroad, notably in South Korea, where his books have circulated for a long time. The translation of his cycles has consolidated a loyal readership. Indeed, they follow the October releases like a new chapter. In France, the author of Les Fourmis, Bernard Werber, occupies a unique place: neither guru nor teacher, but storyteller. His voice is read, heard, and seen on stage.
The distinction of officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (2022) seals institutional recognition. However, it does not change his relationship with the public. He continues to sign, travel through theaters and festivals, and venture into stage experiences. The constancy is there: questioning the human, making science and imagination dialogue, proposing paths of empathy with the living.
Love as a secondary stage
Let’s return to Nice. This story is not valuable for its romanticism, but for what it reveals: for Werber, private life is never an impregnable fortress, it sometimes contaminates the stage. A phrase thrown in a signing line is enough to disrupt the agenda, to invent an elsewhere. Three years, then silence. He says no more, and that’s enough.
Lessons from a journey
From the child struck by pain to the popular novelist, a line is drawn: to tell the real differently. The precocity of pain has undoubtedly sharpened attention to mechanisms, to systems. Moreover, it has refined attention to the rules that govern the living. Literature becomes a laboratory: hypotheses are tested, ideas are unfolded, voices from other realms are listened to – insects, cats, trees. The V.I.E show extends this approach: everything happens in the room, in each person, without spectacular decor.
The televised interview of autumn 2025 acts as a clarification. No self-pity, but a story of resilience. No heroic posture, but the description of a path through curiosity and perseverance. Moreover, it also passes through the pleasure of storytelling.
Useful references
- 11/30/2025: airing of an episode of Un dimanche à la campagne with Bernard Werber, Sidonie Bonnec, and Pierre Lapointe.
- 10/01/2025: release of La Voix de l’arbre (Albin Michel).
- 11/26/2025: V.I.E at the Théâtre du Manège (Reims), as part of the Charabia Festival.
- 11/29/2025: evening meeting at the Théâtre du Chêne noir (Avignon).
- 1991: publication of Les Fourmis, first major international success.
To situate the author over time
Born in Toulouse, Werber is part of a lineage of French writers who combine anticipation and philosophical questioning. His bibliography mixes cycles – from Les Fourmis to gods, angels, cats, Pandora – and standalone novels, plays, short stories, imaginary encyclopedias. His official website reflects the bustling activity of recent years. Moreover, the encyclopedic notice allows for a quick overview of a career spanning more than three decades.
What remains
In the attic of the show, one hears less a complaint than a method: transforming the obstacle into material for thought, then into material for storytelling. A few minutes are enough to understand that Bernard Werber’s work recomposes itself constantly around the same gesture: opening. Opening books, the doors of memory, the theater of possibilities. And continuing the conversation, from one page to another, from one room to another, from one era to another.
