The chapters by Bertrand Cardin and Audrey Robitaillié share a concern for intertextuality and an interest in Colum McCann's fiction. Bertrand Cardin asks: “Does the author really have power and authority? The question becomes more complicated when there are several “authors”: “Isn't the authority of the quoting author eclipsed by that of the quoted author, or vice versa? The chapter convincingly explores the possibility that intertextual practice is “a sign that authority is in crisis”. Before focusing on Colum McCann's novel, Let the Great World Spin, and revealing its playfulness and intertextual debt, Cardin reminds us that intertextuality emerged in critical discourse in a context of crisis and rejection of authority - 1968 - and that it is inextricably linked to the theory of the “death of the author”, the authority for the production of meaning in a text having passed from the author to the reader.