Novels Aux animaux la guerre (Of Fangs And Talons) His first novel is
Aux animaux la guerre (2014), a mystery and crime novel, published by Chez Actes Noir, a division of Éditions
Actes Sud. It was adapted to a 6-part
France 3 television series in 2018. It was translated into English in 2021 under the title ("Of Fangs And Talons"). The novel covers deindustrialization and moral decay and is said to follow in the literary traditions of writers such as
Balzac and
Émile Zola.
Leurs enfants après eux (And Their Children After Them) His second novel,
Leurs enfants après eux (2018) is about a group of young people in the 1990s in a fictional rural northeastern French town, set in the valley of
Lorraine, It has been translated by
William Rodarmor and was published in the United States as
And Their Children After Them on 7 April 2020 by
Other Press. The original novel won France's prestigious
Prix Goncourt in 2018 and the English translation won the
Albertine Prize (for French writing in translation) in 2021.
Connemara Connemara was published by Actes Sud in 2022. It is described as a "complex love story" between Hélène and Christophe, two forty-somethings, who hail from the same town in the Vosges region but reconnect after leading very different lives. Mathieu gave the work its title as a nod to the song "Les Lacs du
Connemara" by
Michel Sardou. Mathieu justified the choice by explaining that while the song is something we all share, the meaning you take from it depends on the circumstances around hearing it. The novel also explores the pressures of a career in management consulting, which is the field in which the leading female character, Hélène, works. Mathieu met with numerous consultants during the preparatory phase of writing the novel. He wrote a feature story titled, "One Summer at the Circle" for publication in
The Southwest Review. In a
Radio France podcast interview in 2024, Mathieu talked about his process in writing love stories when he said: "A love story is not like a football team transfer: you don't change your shirt, your salary and your convictions overnight." The work includes illustrations by Aline Zalco. Mathieu explained in interviews that he had begun writing the ideas that became this collection of prose in Facebook posts in 2008, continuing on Instagram from 2012, and that these writings were messages to "a woman who was not free," It was, in effect, an opening of the sky (the English translation of the title being 'the open sky') on something like a private diary. The texts were "cast into a stream," live-posted confessions, it was said. This was remarkable as a story in motion and a daily account of the passage of time. He has said that these outpourings were his attempt to process overwhelming emotions, a struggle to move beyond it, and a "war against the natural course of things." ==Political views and activities==