This book, stemming from the first academic symposium dedicated to the contemporary French writer Marcel Cohen, examines the unique literary practices and definitions that characterize his work. It aims to resonate with a literary gesture that places reading at the core of the writing process and delves into the relevance of this oeuvre. It combines a persistent reflection on the contemporary world with a memory of the historical violence of the 20th and 21st centuries, at the intersection of knowledge and writing practices. In addition to co-editing the issue and co-authoring the introduction, I have contributed a personal article to this book titled “Initiation à la lecture courante” (“Introduction to Ordinary Reading.”) This article proposes to reread Marcel Cohen's work as a narrative of learning to decipher signs and traces. Through the study of photographs integrated into the work and presented as “documents” related to the author's family members who were murdered in Auschwitz when he was a child, the article examines the use of literary work as a tool for initiating documentary reading.