Freelance journalist, documentary maker and writer, Nadir Dendoune told himself many stories before he decided to write his own. Loving child born to Algerian parents who emigrated to France, he grew up in the warmth of a family of 9 children but deprived of the easy living conditions which seemed to have deserted council estates in the suburbs of Paris.
Raised in a failure-oriented culture, the teenager struggled to find his place in a society that did not give him any opportunity for redemption. Although Nadir thought he was doomed to only know anger, he rose above. Convinced that one’s twenties should be the best years of one’s life, he flew off to Australia in 1993 with his best friend Yannick and lived ‘down under’ for eight years, suffused with happiness and resurrection.
In 2001, driven by his enthusiasm, he embarked upon a cycling trip around the world in partnership with the Australian Red Cross to raise awareness of AIDS. Back in France in 2002 and again among his family, he left once more during 2003 to become a human shield in Iraq. There, he lost part of his innocence. His first book, “Journal de guerre d’un pacifiste” (War Diary of a Pacifist) was published in 2005. Many others followed infused with his working-class endowed style of writing, giving birth to a truly poetic prose. The Julien Prunet grant allowed him to join the Journalist Training Centre where he learned public speaking. Even though he still stumbles on a few words, Nadir gives voice to all the silences that he refuses to accept.
Eager to always heap opprobrium on social status and expectation, he took on Mount Everest without proper training and with a fake alpinism certificate that failed to fool anyone for long. And yet, propelled by both his love for his family and the richness of his encounters, he reached the crown of the world on the 25th of May 2008. Because he did not know it was impossible, this valiant soul did it.
The story of this absolutely extraordinary climb was turned into a movie and moved more than one million viewers. Far from being an act of revenge against the harshness of life, Nadir shares with us this feat to open our realms of possibility and dream bigger. Nadir Dendoune does not think that believing hard enough is enough to achieve anything; he rejects this idea because it makes the ones who do not succeed feel guilty. Instead, he would rather believe in the strength of the community and celebrate the beauty of random acts of kindness, the virtues that bring us closer together.
Read: « Journal de guerre d’un pacifiste », « Lettre ouverte à un fils d’immigré », « Un tocard sur le toit du monde », « Nos rêves de pauvres ». Watch: « The Climb » (original title: L’ascension), « Des figues en avril »
Journalist : Laurence Lorenzon – Music and sound editing : Romain Sensey – Photo ©Camille Millerand
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