In France, The Mere Existence Of Books Can Threaten A Discouraged – And Unrepresented – Working Class

Édouard Louis, author of the new book “The End of Eddy,” about growing up gay in a conservative small town: “However different Baldwin’s childhood was from De Beauvoir’s, mine was like neither of theirs: in my childhood, there were no books. My parents have never read a book in their lives; there wasn’t a single book in our house. For us, a book was a kind of assault: it represented a life we would never have, the life of people who pursue an education, who have time to read, who have gone to university and had an easier time of it than us.”