Change: A Novel by Édouard Louis review – a knack for dramatising filial strife
Change by Édouard Louis review – the revenge of Eddy
January 2024
Édouard Louis: ‘All my writing is political – and all my life is, too’
Ten years on from his first, brutal autofiction about growing up gay in a working-class village, the writer talks about his new novel, being a class defector – and how to take on Marine Le Pen
‘When I was 21 it was already too late’: an extract from Change by Édouard Louis
In this short passage from his new novel, the French writer examines his compulsion to write about his own life
The best original photographs from the Observer
Original Observer Photography
From Peter Capaldi on satire, politics and privilege to life as Hugh Hefner’s wife in the Playboy Mansion: the best original photographs from the Observer commissioned in January 2024
March 2023
French philosopher urges people to rebel – by making friends
Geoffroy de Lagasnerie says focus on friendships over relationships or family is radical act in today’s society
September 2022
Who Killed My Father review – powerful study of class, cruelty and kin
Hans Kesting is spellbinding as an anguished man facing up to his abusive father in Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of the book by Édouard Louis
July 2022
Book of the day
A Woman’s Battles and Transformations by Édouard Louis review – portrait of a mother’s darkest days
Author Édouard Louis: ‘Progressives can’t just sit back and say, “Isn’t the rise of the far right awful?”’
May 2021
Édouard Louis: ‘Truth is a revenge because we live in a world of lies’
The author, who became a literary sensation at the age of 21 with The End of Eddy, is appearing in a show exploring acting in theatre and in everyday life
January 2021
Lockdown culture
Weg met Eddy Bellegueule review – a four-way triumph
Playing multiple roles, four young actors dazzle in Eline Arbo’s superb staging of Édouard Louis’s brutal coming-of-age novel
December 2020
Édouard Louis ‘in very bad way’ after man accused of his rape has charge dropped
Friends say Louis, who recounted the attack in his acclaimed book History of Violence, ‘traumatised again’ after trial that dismissed sexual assault claim
March 2020
Book clinic
Book clinic: which books examine modern masculinity?
Writer Darran Anderson bypasses Houellebecq in favour of fiction from Édouard Louis to Hanif Kureishi
January 2020
Top 10s
Top 10 books about toxic masculinity
The term may be new, but as stories from Homer to Henry James show, the behaviour is anything but
December 2019
Books blog
Autofiction at war: why 'revenge novels' are taking off in Norway
Bestselling authors Karl Ove Knausgaard and Vigdis Hjorth have had family members reply to their autobiographical books with their own. But where does it end?
August 2019
Toni Morrison remembered by Édouard Louis: ‘Her laugh was her revenge against the world’
The French author of The End of Eddy on the day he sipped neat vodka with the revered late author
June 2019
Books interview
Édouard Louis: ‘We didn’t reject literature – it rejected us’
The enfant terrible of French writing talks about the violence perpetrated by the political system on the working class
February 2019
Who Killed My Father by Édouard Louis review – dangerous masculinity
Book of the day
Who Killed My Father by Édouard Louis review – a short, sharp shock
December 2018
Fiction and nonfiction to look out for in 2019
We look ahead to rich offerings in next year’s genre-challenging nonfiction list and thrilling new fiction writing for all tastes
