The Wings of Creation

Two decades after their first meeting as 20-year-old freshmen at the Ecole normale superieure, Karol Beffa held the Chair of Artistic Creation at the College de France, and Cedric Villani was Director of the Institut Henri-Poincare at the Sorbonne University. They had two public discussions in 2012 and 2014, and these dialogues - on profession, creation, style, pastiche, fellow travellers, mentors, suffering, and constraints - became a book. The Wings of Creations is translated from Les Coulisses de la creation (Flammarion, 2015). Karol Beffa is a musician. Cedric Villani is a mathematician.