feeLit 2025: Édouard Louis und Didier Eribon

In the organizer's words:

From June 29 to July 12, feeLit - International Literature Festival Heidelberg will be hosting its authors at halle02 for the first time. For seven days, this new festival venue will be all about books and writing. This year, feeLit will present national and international literary stars and bring authors together with their audience.

Édouard Louis and Didier Eriboni

Moderation: Vanessa Vu and Sonja Finck
Language: French/German (simultaneous translation)

Édouard Louis, born in 1991, shot to fame with his autobiographical debut The End of Eddy. In it, he describes his childhood in a village in northern France and his journey out of poverty, violence and exclusion. The book became an international bestseller and his works have been published in over 30 countries, adapted for the theater and made into films. His most recent books are Who Killed My Father and A Woman's Freedom. Louis lives in Paris and is considered one of the most important voices in young French literature.

In Monique Breaks Out, Édouard Louis returns to the story of his mother - a woman who once freed herself from a life of alcohol, violence and silence. But when she calls him one night, threatened by her new partner, everything threatens to repeat itself. The son intervenes and plans an escape with her. A new beginning is made - but what does freedom mean if you have never learned to live it?

A sensitive portrait about the struggle for self-determination, about closeness and healing between mother and son.
A moving literary work that shows how personal stories make social realities visible.

"France's biggest literary sensation." - The New York Times

Didier Eribon is a French sociologist, author and philosopher. His book Return to Reims (2009, Engl. 2016) also made him famous in German-speaking countries. The autofictional essay about the death of his father was celebrated as a literary event and read as a key text for understanding the social shift to the right. His new novel Eine Arbeiterin - Leben, Altern und Sterben was published in March 2024.

After the death of his mother, Didier Eribon looks back on the deprived life of a woman trapped in marriage, poverty and social constraints. He describes her biography with an unsparing eye - and exposes how politics and philosophy suppress the reality of ageing.

At the same time, he creates a moving portrait of the French working class: characterized by work, solidarity, but also prejudice.
A deeply personal, political and linguistically brilliant text about origin, family and social exclusion.

"One of the most intense books written about parenthood in recent years." - Deutschlandfunk Kultur