A Conversation with Édouard Louis: Sexuality, Class, and Contemporary French Literature
Join us for a special public conversation with acclaimed French author, Édouard Louis, on the topic of sexuality, class, and contemporary French Literature. The event will be moderated by Profs. Anthony Petro (American Studies) and Pierre-Elliot Caswell (Romance Languages), followed by a Q&A with the author.
Author biography: Édouard Louis was born and raised in a poor, working-class family in Hallencourt, a post-industrial village in northern France where many live below the poverty line. The poverty, racism, alcoholism and his homosexuality which he dealt with during his childhood would become the subject of his literary work.
A wrenching account of growing up in poverty while struggling with homophobia and classism, his debut novel, the autobiographical En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule (The End of Eddy, 2014), became a bestseller and was subsequently translated into more than 20 languages. In 2016, Louis published a second bestselling novel, Histoire de la violence, an unblinking narrative about surviving a shocking sexual assault, as well as a deep reflection upon the social violences in which sexual violence is embedded. In his latest book, L’Effondrement (2024), the author explores his relationship with his older brother, who died at the age of thirty-eight, a life cut short by unemployment and alcohol.
Theatre has been crucial in shaping his writing. Louis has played himself onstage in Thomas Ostermeier’s version of his 2018 book, Who Killed My Father, a monologue commissioned and originally performed by the French actor and director Stanislas Nordey. Louis and NTGent director Milo Rau collaborated on a theatrical piece titled The Interrogation, a solo performance exploring the thin line between acting, living and surviving. With Ostermeier, he jointly authored the stage adaptation of his autobiographical novel Histoire de la violence (published in French as Au cœur de la violence).
