‘Édouard Louis & Geoffroy de Lagasnerie’

The promising young French novelist in a dialogue with his philosophical counterpart. Both of them are on the verge of a major international breakthrough and have even been described as “The new French intellectuals” in the United States. They are currently writing a book together, which has already given rise to the controversial article Manifesto for an Intellectual and Political Counteroffensive.
“For most of us now, to experience politics is to experience powerlessness,” reads one of the sloganesque sentences in their manifesto, in which they call on progressive thinkers to engage in politics and occupy the public arena because they feel that the French government has abandoned left-wing ideals. “Intellectuels de gauche, réengagez-vous !”. 
Édouard Louis and Geoffroy de Lagasnerie discuss the role of their social engagement in their literary and political work during a unique encounter in BOZAR.
The discussion will be moderated by Gilles Collard, co-founder of the Pylône magazine and educational responsible for the Atelier des écritures contemporaines at La Cambre.

Édouard Louis is regarded as the crown prince of French literature. His literary debut, the novel The End of Eddy, about a working-class family in a poor northern French town, was an immediate international success. His second novel, History of Violence, tells the story of a shocking sexual assault, and tries to understand the causes and consequences of the phenomenon of violence. He recently published Qui a tué mon père.
Geoffroy de Lagasnerie is a philosopher and a sociologist, who is widely regarded as one of France’s most prominent contemporary thinkers. He has written L'Art de la révolte. Snowden, Assange, Manning (2015) among others, and has published several articles and books on social and political philosophy, the sociology of culture and intellectual life. He is particularly interested in the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault.