For weeks, the large lecture hall had been sold out in anticipation of a lecture and conversation with Édouard Louis (1992). In 2014 he launched himself into the literary world with his much-awarded debut En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule, translated into Dutch as Weg met Eddy Bellegueule. Over the past ten years, he published six more novels, all inspired by his origins in a toxic working-class environment marked by poverty, domestic violence, racism, and homophobia. Last year he released his latest explosive account of that milieu with the novel L’effondrement, this time focused on his older brother, who died at 38 from excessive alcohol use. Dutch publisher De Bezige Bij has published all seven of his novels, most recently the newly released sibling drama De Ondergang.
Louis’s visit to Nijmegen was also one of the highlights of the annual literary week of De Wintertuin. The evening, rich in intellectual reflection, opened fittingly with an ode by writer Milio van de Kamp, who debuted in 2023 with the tellingly titled Misschien moet je iets lager mikken (“Maybe you should aim a little lower”). Van de Kamp who, like his great example Louis, managed to rise from a poor home environment to the academic world borrowed the title from a teacher’s advice in response to his writing ambitions. “Thanks to Eddy, I encountered literature,” Van de Kamp said in his loving laudatio to the guest of honor. Louis gave him the confidence that he could succeed as a writer. People from his background are all too easily ignored, except by Eddy, Van de Kamp recalled from a past meeting. “He is someone who knows what it means not to be seen.”
Unequal opportunities
Professor Eddie Denessen was the first of three Radboud scholars to speak with the French author. He discussed with Louis the possibilities of education in overcoming unequal opportunities, also the subject of his inaugural lecture in 2024. After all, Louis had pulled himself out of his background through education, reaching the top of the ladder by studying sociology at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
Is this a prime example of meritocracy, Denessen asked: was his rise a reward for his own effort and talent? Was education the engine that allowed him to escape his background? Louis nuanced the role of his own talent and intelligence. It was more complicated, he explained, describing the impossibility of developing his otherness and homosexuality in the environment he came from. In order to live, “I had to escape that milieu. I had no other choice.” When asked what must change first if education is to play a true emancipatory role in society, Louis did not hesitate: “Reduce the influence of the family on educational opportunities.”
Structures of violence
Throughout the evening, Louis repeatedly emphasized the limits of individual effort in favor of greater attention to underlying social structures, largely inspired by Pierre Bourdieu, one of his greatest influences. The French sociologist, anthropologist, and cultural critic studied “social reproduction” extensively: the transmission of even the most miserable conditions from generation to generation, often without people realizing it. This insight motivated Louis to write his latest novel about his brother. He hated him intensely, moderator Cees Leijenhorst noted, so why the strong need to understand him?
Yes, Louis confirmed: “I hated him, he hated me, he hated women, he was a racist, violent, a homophobe.” Yet he still deserves the scalpel of this novel, precisely to press on that sore spot. According to Louis, his brother’s behavior didn’t come out of nowhere; it was a product of his environment. The purpose of the book is to bring this to light “to make visible what we would rather not see” and to achieve better understanding. “If you don’t study the objective factors that underlie violence, you can’t defend yourself against it.”
