Deep France

This category brings together contributions on the literature of provincial and rural France—that “other” space beyond the metropolises where social tensions, historical sediments, and cultural peculiarities are particularly concentrated. The focus is on novels, short stories, and autobiographical texts that explore life in villages, small towns, and economically disadvantaged regions. The analysis examines poetic techniques, constructions of milieu, and spatial semantics through which peripheral France becomes visible as a literary space of experience and conflict.

Fire, sea, grain of sand, stone: Antoine Wauters

Antoine Wauters' novel "Haute-Folie" (Gallimard, 2025) tells the story of Josef, born into a farming family rife with fractures, silences, and tragedies, who struggles throughout his life against the invisible burdens of his origins. The starting point is a devastating fire that destroys the farm and animals, triggering a chain of loss, betrayal, and death that ultimately culminates in violence, suicide, and guilt. Josef grows up in the shadow of these catastrophes, surrounded by silent adults, destructive repetitions, and the compulsion to carry the repressed family history with him—raising the question of whether writing it down represents a form of liberation or a repetition of the pain. Wauters' prose repeatedly employs lyrically dense passages that allow memories, voices, and places to merge, making the experience of madness (folie) tangible as both a poetic and existential boundary experience.

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Night Stories: Laurent Mauvignier

Laurent Mauvignier sets many of his books in the fictional town of La Bassée, including "La maison vide" (2025), announced for release this fall and highly regarded for French literary prizes. As preparation, we read his night stories from 2020, the setting of which Mauvignier returns to in his new book. Laurent Mauvignier's novel "Histoires de la nuit" (2020) unfolds in the isolated hamlet of "L'écart des Trois Filles Seules," where the painter Christine lives as a neighbor of the farmer Patrice, his wife Marion, and their daughter Ida, whose seemingly idyllic rural life is shattered by the preparations for Marion's 40th birthday. This peace is shattered when Marion's ex-partner Denis, fresh out of prison and driven by years of revenge, arrives with his brothers Christophe and Bègue to punish Marion for her perceived betrayal and the estrangement from her daughter. This culminates in the brutal killing of Christine's dog Radjah and the kidnapping of the two women. As the evening unfolds, Marion's violent past is revealed, while Patrice, who has long suppressed the truth about his wife, joins Marion in a desperate fight for their family's survival and to protect their daughter during a night of bloody confrontations that exposes deep-seated traumas and familial depravity.

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Roman chorale of a valley in the Périgord: Renaud de Chaumaray

Renaud de Chaumaray's novel "Quitter la vallée" (Gallimard, 2025) belongs to a tradition that could be described in French as "roman choral" or "polyphonic realism": a literary project that interweaves multiple voices, biographies, and perspectives to create a supra-individual portrait of a region, a milieu, or an era. Set in the heart of the Périgord, more precisely in the Vallée de la Vézère, Chaumaray unfolds three initially independent narrative threads that gradually touch, intertwine, and overlap. The novel evokes landscape, history, and violence, memory, love, and escape, so that it cannot be read merely as an ensemble of individual fates, but rather as a kind of fresco in which individual existence and collective experience are inextricably linked.

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France's Contamination 2036: Robert Merle and Emmanuel Ruben

Emmanuel Ruben's novel "Malville" (Stock, 2024) fits into a long line of apocalyptic literature, ranging from biblical prophecies to Robert Merle's "Malevil" (1972, English translation 1975), whose title is deliberately invoked here as an intertextual reference: On the level of social critique, "Malville" is a reckoning with French nuclear policy since the 1970s. Today, Ruben meticulously traces how political decisions—from Macron's revival of the nuclear program to the rise of the far right and the dissolution of the European Union—led to catastrophe. Robert Merle's "Malevil" is narrated from the first-person perspective of the farmer Emmanuel Comte, who, after a sudden nuclear strike, survives in the isolated castle of Malevil along with a small group of friends and neighbors. Even before the actual plot begins, it becomes clear that Rubens' "Malville" is intended to be read as an intertextual dialogue with Merle – a continuation, variation and at the same time a critical reversal of his apocalyptic novel.

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Ploughman of the Earth: Gaspard Kœnig

Gaspard Kœnig's "Humus" (2023, German translation 2025), firmly rooted in the grand tradition of realist literature, delves deep into the substance of soil and its inhabitants, the earthworms, to explore existential questions about the relationship between humanity and nature, idealism and pragmatism, failure and new beginnings. It is the story of two young agronomy students, Arthur and Kevin, whose paths initially intersect before diverging radically, reflecting the complexity of contemporary environmental conflicts. The novel does not simply choose between the protagonists' two major options, but rather analyzes both the flaws and the merits of each.

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The forgotten drama from 1940: Aurélien d'Avout

Aurélien d'Avout, La France en éclats: écrire la débâcle de 1940, d'Aragon à Claude Simon (Brussels: Les Impressions nouvelles, 2023), 390 pp. A turning point and a rupture in the French self-image: Aurélien d'Avout's study, La France en éclats, illuminates why the year 1940, and June in particular, is often shrouded in a "veil of silence" in France. Although the…

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Poetics of Childhood: Clothilde Salelle's, Nos insomnies (2025)

The novel "Nos insomnies" (2025) tells the story of an unnamed first-person narrator growing up in a rural suburb in the late 1990s. The central and closely guarded family secret is chronic insomnia, which, "like an evil spell," slips from one family member to the next. The protagonist is an observant keen observer who regards her father, his mysterious work in the laboratory, and his reactions to the outside world (especially noise and the threat posed by the encroaching "lotissement" development) with suspicion and mistrust. She conducts "very serious investigations" to decipher the unspoken truths, but feels envy for the "problems" of her friend Julie, which are nameable and lend "consistency" to her existence. Summer holidays at a campsite offer a temporary respite from the oppressive atmosphere at home. Here the father seems to flourish, and the insomnia recedes into the background, even though the summer itself is eventually "contaminated" by it.

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Poetics of Childhood: Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux's poetics of childhood is an evolving, central dimension of her work, inextricably linking personal memory with collective, social, and historical dimensions. Her childhood in her parents' café-grocery store in Yvetot instilled in her a profound sense of in-betweenness and fragmentation—born of a lack of privacy, early exposure to poverty and social disparities that intensified during her private school years and resulted in a break with her family background. Rather than presenting a linear, traditional narrative of childhood, Ernaux dissects her memories, analyzing the formative influences of language, social origin, gender roles, and cultural norms, and illuminating how these factors shaped her identity as a child and young woman. She seeks to unravel the "unspeakable scene" of her childhood and embed it within the generality of laws and language, often presenting herself as an "ethnologist of herself." Her depictions of childhood are therefore not idealized or nostalgic reminiscences, but sharp, often painful investigations that reveal the ambivalence and social tensions of her origins.

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New space, new person: Agnès Riva

What tension arises between visionary designs and the complex urban reality? Agnès Riva's latest book, "Un autre ailleurs" (2025), explores the genesis of New Créteil in 1973, focusing on the perspective of 23-year-old "animator" Gilles. Initially, he is deeply fascinated by the modernity and revolutionary potential of Créteil, which, for him, "is springing from the ground" and is a "brand-new landscape, an incarnation of the future" where "everything seemed possible, including a new life." Agnès Riva understands the city of Créteil as a "space of memory and imagination" as well as a "romantic laboratory" for illuminating the history of the "new city." The study begins by presenting the initial modernist-utopian visions for such planned cities, which were heavily influenced by Le Corbusier's ideas of radical redesign and functionality. This initial enthusiasm is illustrated by the novel's protagonist, Gilles, who sees Créteil as a "brand-new landscape, the incarnation of the future" and underscores the idea of ​​a new beginning with the slogan "New space, new man!" The core of the argument then lies in the gradual disillusionment: The article shows how the lofty utopian promises begin to crack in the inhabitants' real experience, characterized by "generic and interchangeable architecture," feelings of "being trapped," and social problems. This disillusionment is deepened by Henri Lefebvre's well-founded theoretical critique of modern urbanism, particularly through his concepts of the "right to the city" and the distinction between the lived "habiter" and the planned "habitat," as well as the loss of the "work" in favor of the "product." In conclusion, the article argues that despite these dominant tendencies of planned urbanism, elements of resistance and appropriation exist that embrace an “urban revolution” as a “real development” and thus suggest a redefinition of utopian hopes, rather than simply stating a failure of utopia.

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Social contempt in France: Rose Lamy

Rose Lamy's book "Ascendant beauf" (Ascendant Philistine, Seuil, 2025) examines social contempt and class dominance in France, particularly through the analysis of the derogatory figure of the "beauf," the epitome of philistinism. The term "beauf" is most likely short for "beau-frère" (brother-in-law). It was created as a comic strip character by the cartoonist Cabu in 1972. The "beauf" is described as a tool of dominance used by the dominant classes to stigmatize and "dehumanize" the working classes. The "beauf" is contrasted with the "Grand Duduche," a character Cabu created as a self-portrait. The Duduche is idealistic, humanistic, educated, non-violent, open-minded, feminist, anti-racist, and votes left or far left. This highlights the dichotomous perspective.

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Childhood and Self-Transformation: Edouard Louis and Didier Eribon

In "Changer: méthode" (Seuil, 2021), Edouard Louis presents childhood as the fundamental origin of pain, exclusion, and the unstoppable urge to escape. Experiences of poverty, the harshness of the social environment, and especially the constant humiliation and slander due to perceived femininity and homosexuality inflict a deep wound on the narrator and an awareness of a predetermined fate to be avoided. This existential compulsion to flee becomes the driving force behind a lifelong and radical self-transformation, understood not as natural development but as conscious, disciplined, and methodical "work" on one's own body and being, often learned through role-playing and imitation. Childhood not only provides the motivation for change but also—through early survival strategies—the initial steps toward this "method," while later childhood and adolescent encounters (e.g., with librarians and Elena) serve as catalysts and precursors for the break with the world of origin. Even in adulthood, childhood remains a constant, often painful reference point, driving the ongoing need for change and shaping the struggle for identity and belonging.

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Anthropology of Fear: Éric Chauvier

The book's knowledge base is deeply rooted in Chauvier's anthropological background, yet it is consistently transformed through literary means. The entire narrative is driven by a central anthropological thesis: the driving force of human history is the fear of death. For Chauvier, civilization is a perpetually failed, ever-renewed attempt to conjure or banish this fear. This fundamental premise permeates the book like a leitmotif, providing the interpretive framework for all of human development. Éric Chauvier's "Un lac inconnu" (2025), published by Editions Allia, presents itself to the reader as a short work—just one hundred pages—but its ambition and intellectual depth extend far beyond this physical length. The author, active as both an anthropologist and a writer, seamlessly blends scientific analysis with literary form in this text. The book is not a traditional essay, but, as Chauvier himself calls it, a "poetic metanarrative" ("métarécit poétique"). This hybrid approach allows for a longue durée literary investigation of human history, its driving forces, and its ultimate direction of development. Chauvier's book project is a fascinating example of transcending disciplinary boundaries and using literary means to present complex anthropological theses.

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A cut into the flesh: Claire Berest on the trial Gisèle Pelicot

Claire Berest's "La Chair des autres" (2025) stems from her observation of the trial of Dominique Pelicot in the fall of 2024, which she initially covered as a reporter. For years, the husband had invited men to his home to sexually abuse his sedated wife, Gisèle Pelicot, without her knowledge. The author combines legal documentation with literary and philosophical reflection, raising fundamental questions about the nature of evil, the possibility of witnessing, and the cultural preconditions of sexual violence. She draws on theorists such as Camille Froidevaux-Metterie and Simone Weil, as well as Hannah Arendt's concept of the "banality of evil" and Roland Barthes' analysis of the fait divers. A key comparison concerns the void of image in the lives of concentration camp survivors, to whom Berest contrasts the "reconstructed image" of rape videos—as a medium of recognition and visibility. The text is not a linear report, but a multifaceted investigation into how law, body and language are negotiated in a cultural context in which awareness of the other appears frighteningly incomplete.

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Aurélien Bellanger as Lorenzaccio: Les derniers jours du Parti socialiste

With his latest novel, "Les derniers jours du Parti socialiste" (The Last Days of the Socialist Party), published this fall of 2024, Aurélien Bellanger moves between political fiction, roman à clef, and social satire, incorporating elements of both utopia and dystopia in an increasingly authoritarian republic where secular ideals are instrumentalized to enforce Islamophobic policies. The novel paints a picture of society in which the traditional political camps of the republic, or rather the boundaries between left and right, are blurred, and nationalist and identitarian movements dominate the political spectrum.

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A province in decline: a kind of inventory of the depths of our country

« Après tout, la France est la France, come vous le disiez here. »

Honoré de Balzac The Country Doctor.

Daniel Rondeau joins the ranks of writers who produce novels as a series. Whether this constitutes serialization, as with film series, or a marketing tool, must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. His series is still incomplete; the first title is... Mécaniques du chaos, 2. Countryside 3 und. Aboveground (not yet published, livres hebdo However, this final volume is called The sons) suggest a dystopian panorama. Après tout, la France the trilogy is supposed to be called. Après tout, that means: "cependant; tout bien considéré; quoi qu'il en soit; dans le fond". So maybe: All in all, France; France, whatever; Ultimately, France., or: Nevertheless France.

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This article is written in German and can be found at https://rentree.de. Automatic translations into English and French are available. English, French.
Rentrée littéraire: contemporary French literature
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