Sylvain Tesson in Bourrienne Paris X

Interviewed by Augustin Trapenard for La Grande Librairie, Sylvain Tesson discusses his latest book, Les Piliers de la mer (Albin Michel). He wears the Nuptiale shirt by Bourrienne Paris X as he recalls his months of climbing with his loyal friend Daniel du Lac.

One hundred and six stone columns standing at the edge of the world, beaten by the wind, surrounded by sea spray. These “stacks,” or “marine torches” as he calls them, are the last bastions of solitude, of elevation, of resistance.

Sylvain Tesson climbing in Bourrienne Shirt

Tesson climbs them as others might read a poem. He seeks a confrontation with nature in its wildest, most untamed form. Where the continent ends, he finds a vertical island. A mineral offering. A silent protest against the relentless pace of the modern world.

Through these suspended journeys, he offers a meditation on erosion—not only of the cliffs, but also of ideals, unspoiled lands, and silence itself. Each pillar is a standing miracle, a challenge to time, a refusal to surrender. In these blocks sculpted by centuries, he sees the image of a man still standing, despite collapse. “I remain,” they seem to say, amid the noise of erasure.

“Climbing these stone pillars is a way of fleeing the world’s horizontality. Up there, there’s no signal, no mirror. Just the wind and the void. One rediscovers the vertical condition of man. A way of saying no to dilution, to noise, to speed. It’s not a feat—it’s an effort to remain upright, just a little longer, in the face of a collapsing world.”
— Sylvain Tesson, La Grande Librairie, May 2025

Les Piliers de la mer is not a mountaineering book. It’s a vertical ode. A quest for height in a flattened world. And at the heart of the interview, Tesson’s whispered message emerges: now more than ever, we must invent a new way of being free—by holding fast to the beauty of the world.

Throughout the interview, Tesson wears the Nuptiale shirt by Bourrienne Paris X. A garment in his image: unbound, precise, profoundly French.

Echoing Tesson’s story, we believe in an elegance that resists time—made of mastered gestures and deliberate details. Like marine stacks defying erosion, our shirts pay tribute to France’s most enduring qualities: a sense of style, craftsmanship, and independence.

Crafted in cotton poplin, the Nuptiale shirt stands out for its soft gathers, allowing movement without constraint. Its cut, structured yet fluid, mirrors Tesson’s very posture: rooted in rigor, open to reverie.

By wearing Nuptiale, Tesson does not simply choose a garment. He embraces a way of life — one of authenticity without affectation, elegance without noise.

Sylvain Tesson is a tightrope walker of untrodden paths. A trained geographer and a travel writer by calling, he has made wandering an art form, and solitude a homeland. From the steppes of Central Asia to the forests of Siberia, from the rooftops of Paris to the hidden paths of rural France, he roams the world on foot, horseback, motorcycle, or by sheer physical effort. Through his writing, he combines physical endurance with contemplation, the taste for asceticism with a chiselled language, always driven by a fever for freedom. Winner of the Prix Renaudot in 2019 for The Snow Leopard, he continues to shape a singular body of work, blending minimalist philosophy with a poetry of the present moment.

Watch the full interview
La Grande Librairie with Augustin Trapenard — May 7, 2025