Édouard Louis (FR)

The French author Édouard Louis's first novel The End of Eddy was published in 2014; a novel about growing up in the outskirts of France with feelings of not fitting in among the other boys or even in his own family. In this environment, it’s all about being “a real man” where the worst thing a man can be is gay. The novel develops into a rough and touching story about getting rid of and ending the identity as Eddy Bellegueule.

A characteristic in Édouard Louis’s writing, is that he draws on his own life experiences and his journey from the bottom of society to being a part of the cultural elite. This shows in his books Who Killed My Father, A Woman’s Battles and Transformations and most notably his latest novel Method of Change (out in Danish in 2023). In this novel he depicts the escape from his social background and the transformation he endured to become Édouard Louis, like having affairs with rich men, aristocrats, and the intoxicating yet nauseating dealings with the elite. As such, the novel becomes a story about the modern class society, inequality, shame, and the privilege-blind upper class.