Patrick Autréaux Explained

Patrick Autréaux
Birth Date:14 March 1968
Birth Place:Melun, France
Occupation:Novelist
Genre:Literary fiction

Patrick Autréaux is a French writer who has held appointments as a writer-in-residence at Boston University (2018–2019, and 2024)[1] and a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2018).[2] After training in medicine and anthropology, he practiced as an emergency-room psychiatrist in Paris and started writing poetry and contemporary art reviews before publishing fiction. He is affiliated with MIT French +.

An early experience with cancer led him to write three books on the topic of illness: Dans la vallée des larmes, Soigner et Se survivre. Dans la vallée des larmes relates the experience of a thirty-five year old doctor coming to terms with a lymphoma whose diagnosis had been suddenly announced.[3] Soigner is about a patient in remission who resumes his previous role of doctor and cares for his dying grandfather.[4] Se survivre consists of seven meditations on the state of illness.[5]

Since these early writings, his work has developed in new directions: a hidden family drama that unravels during the expulsion of an undocumented person in France (Les Irréguliers), the agitation of a tree shaken by a storm as a metaphor for the loss of a loved one (Le grand vivant) and a narrative retracing Autréaux's personal journey between medicine and literature (La Voix écrite).[6] Les Irréguliers was born out of the experience the author had when seeking news of a detained undocumented friend. Le grand vivant labels itself a “standing poem” which brings to life the dying moments of a beloved grandfather, who until his last breath, had sheltered the presence of his deceased wife and was in the eyes of his grandson, a protective figure.” Le grand vivant was performed in 2015 the French Avignon theater festival. Lastly, La Voix écrite is an autobiographical tale on the long road to writing. This tale speak particularly of the relationship between the author and his former editor “Max” behind whom we decipher “the protective figure of J.-B. Pontalis”, psychoanalyst and editor at Gallimard.[7]

About his novel Quand la parole attend la nuit (Verdier, 2019, selected for the Prix Femina and Prix Décembre),[8] [9] the French literary journal AOC noted, “The learning in question here is much broader than that of becoming a practitioner. The art of medicine for Patrick Autréaux is the art of being in the world or, to use one of his terms, of being in the ‘cosmos'.’”[10] His book Pussyboy (Verdier, 2021) is "a strong, disturbing, and daring story without ever being raw, radical in everything it reveals",[11] and according to Diacritik "one of the most important books in recent years"[12] that also signals a new inflection in his work.

Patrick Autréaux announced in 2023 the opening of an autobiographical cycle, titled Constat,[13] [14] with the release of The Saint of the Family. Liberation described it as “a text on faith written by an atheist and whose engine is ‘care’ in the strong sense of the term: a concern, a generous responsibility as much as a therapeutic intervention.”[15] The French literary journal Zone Critique[16] added, “The saint of the family is none other than Thérèse de Lisieux, in short Sainte Thérèse... Here, she almost makes herself an imaginary friend of the child in the story... No family inquiry, no hidden motives, or aggressive vindictiveness, but the observation of a reality that was and its progressive surfacing under the watchful reader’s eyes. If the text deploys an attempt to unmask, it is not to reveal any mystery therefore, but to consider the other side of the coin, the flip side of history.” AOC further calls it “a journey along which illusions fall away, the inessential fades away and the meaning of things becomes clearer.”[17]

Patrick Autréaux's work has also been published in numerous journals (such as Esprit, Europe, NRF, Socrates on the beach,[18] MuseMedusa,[19] Lettres Françaises, Décapage, Mettray, Zone Critique, etc.). His poetry has appeared, amongst other outlets, in Phréatique, Poésie 91, Van (Ho Chi Minh City), MuseMedusa (Canada), Sarrazine, Noto, REVU, Margelles, and Catastrophes.[20]

In 2022, he was a Fellow at The Dora Maar House (Nancy B. Negley Artists Residency Program);[21] and in 2023, writer-in-residence at the Internationale House of Literature in Brussels (Passa Porta).

Political positions :

In 2016, Autréaux published with the Diderot Institute a polemical take on the terrorist attack, “Je suis Charlie, un an après”, written for a round table at Harvard University and Boston University.[22] [23] And in 2019, Politis published an open letter to his representative LREM about the Yellow Vest Protests: "Congresswoman, why I don't believe you"[24]

List of Works

Works of fiction

Translations

Essays and articles

Writings on art

Interviews

Awards and distinctions

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Patrick Autréaux. Boston University. Boston University. 10 March 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180311081241/https://www.bu.edu/rs/profile/patrick-fabry-autreaux/. 11 March 2018. dead.
  2. Web site: Patrick Autréaux. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 10 March 2018.
  3. Web site: "Dans la vallée des larmes", de Patrick Autréaux : rescapé du naufrage. René de Ceccatty. Le Monde. 2 July 2009. 5 September 2016.
  4. News: Soigner. Dominque Lecourt. La Croix. 28 September 2010. 5 September 2016.
  5. Web site: Se survivre. Nathalie Crom. Télérama. 17 June 2013. 5 September 2016.
  6. Web site: Strangeness From Within: Toward a Novel. WBUR. 10 June 2018.
  7. News: Joubert . Sophie . 2017-03-17 . La foi en l'écriture et le gardien du seuil . French . L'Humanite . Paris . 2018-11-21.
  8. Web site: Le Femina dévoile ses premières sélections 2019 . 2019-09-21 . Livres Hebdo . fr.
  9. Web site: La première sélection du prix Décembre 2019 . 2019-09-21 . Livres Hebdo . fr.
  10. Web site: Kantcheff . Christophe . 2019-09-08 . Une éducation de carabin – à propos de Quand la parole attend la nuit de Patrick Autréaux - AOC media . 2023-09-15 . AOC media - Analyse Opinion Critique . fr-FR.
  11. Web site: Lecaplain . Guillaume . L’extase selon Patrick Autréaux . 2023-09-15 . Libération . fr.
  12. Web site: Faerber . Johan . 2023-01-09 . Patrick Autréaux : " On écrit souvent là où ça cloche " (La Sainte de la famille) . 2023-09-15 . DIACRITIK . fr-FR.
  13. Web site: Napoli . Gabrielle . 2023-02-07 . La sainte de la famille, de Patrick Autréaux : Thérèse et moi . 2023-09-15 . En attendant Nadeau . fr-FR.
  14. Web site: Faerber . Johan . 2023-01-09 . Patrick Autréaux : " On écrit souvent là où ça cloche " (La Sainte de la famille) . 2023-09-15 . DIACRITIK . fr-FR.
  15. Web site: Loret . Eric . Patrick Autréaux, Lisieux dans les yeux . 2023-09-15 . Libération . fr.
  16. Web site: Perez . Rodolphe . 2023-01-12 . Patrick Autréaux : Le fil de Thérèse ou le témoin advenu . 2023-09-15 . ZONE CRITIQUE . en.
  17. Web site: Kantcheff . Christophe . 2023-02-13 . Main dans la main – sur La Sainte de la famille de Patrick Autréaux - AOC media . 2023-09-15 . AOC media - Analyse Opinion Critique . fr-FR.
  18. Web site: Patrick Autréaux’s "A School of Life" . 2023-09-15 . Socrates on the Beach . en-US.
  19. Web site: Le gué – MuseMedusa . 2023-09-15 . musemedusa.com.
  20. Web site: 2022-09-08 . Cinq poèmes . 2023-09-15 . Catastrophes . fr-FR.
  21. Web site: Directory of fellows . 7 September 2023 . The Dora Maar Cultural Center . Fondation Nancy Brown Negley.
  22. Web site: Violence, Literature, and Politics. Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies. 15 April 2015.
  23. Web site: Patrick Autréaux : " Rendre compte de la violence et des non-dits ". Politis.fr. 17 February 2016. 2018-10-15.
  24. Web site: 2019-01-23 . Madame la députée En marche, pourquoi je ne vous crois pas… . 2023-09-19 . POLITIS . fr-FR.
  25. Web site: Sublunary Editions Independent publisher . 2024-09-20 . sublunaryeditions.com.
  26. La escritura al límite: escribir la sexualidad . en . 2024-09-17 . www.youtube.com.
  27. Web site: About Passa Porta- passa porta Passa Porta . 2023-09-19 . www.passaporta.be . en.

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