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Corniche Kennedy written by Maylis de Kerangal can be read as a Mediterranean novel inspired by Albert Camus and Paul Valéry. The writer develops a southern philosophy which is based on sensitive approach and presence in the world. This philosophy could be called “thinking of the South”. Hellenistic culture, phenomenology and humanism could be gathered to be the basis of a metaphysic of Mediterranean culture. Therefore, Corniche Kennedy is defined as a solar tragedy which represents intensity and death acceptation as the both sides of Mediterranean world.

Marcel Pagnol seems a paradoxal choice to question the links between literature and cosmopolitism: on the contrary, this author appears to have an inward-looking outlook, adopting a national, even regional perspective. In truth, the local picture of Provence involves the definition of the Mediterranean area, which is the ultimate example of a crossroads for exchange. Therefore, Pagnol’s description of Southern France is twofold: he takes up the Latin and Hellenic imaginative worlds in a neoclassical approach without denying Arabic and Semitic influences. Blending cosmopolitism and attachment to his homeland, the writer could be described as an « open nationalist ».