Rencontre avec François-Henri Désérable
Conversation avec Joelle Vitiello.
Join us for a literary discussion between famous French author François-Henri Désérable and Joelle Vitiello, Professor and Chair of French and Francophone Studies at Macalester College!
This event will be the last stop on Désérable’s tour of the U.S. Don’t miss your chance to meet one of France’s talented up-and-coming authors!
The conversation will be held in French or English, depending on the audience.
This event is free with a $10 suggested donation to support our Cultural Programs!
about the author
Born in Amiens, France, François-Henri Désérable was a professional ice hockey player until 2016. He played for LHC Les Lions, the Montpellier Vipers, and even for Wayzata High School here in Minnesota!
He then began his literary career with his first book, Tu montreras ma tête au peuple; short-stories about the French revolution, which was released in April 2013 by Gallimard and won multiple literary awards.
Two years later, he published Évariste, a novel about Évariste Galois, French mathematician who revolutionized algebra and died at age 20 from wounds suffered in a duel. Un certain M. Piekielny, literary investigation around a character invented by Romain Gary, was the only novel selected for the six major French literary prizes in 2017. In Mon maître et mon vainqueur (2021), he dissects the mechanisms of passionate love. This novel won the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française.
At the end of 2022, the Iranian government’s repression of the protests following Mahsa Amin’s death reached a peak. That’s when François-Henri Désérable decided to travel around the country, from Téhéran to Baloutchistan. Arrested by the Guardians of the revolution and summoned to leave the country, he returned to France with the draft of L’Usure d’un monde: une traversée de l’Iran in his lugagge. Désérable’s book bears witness to what he saw: a beleaguered Islamic Republic that bloodily repressed its people’s aspiration to freedom.
about the moderator
Joëlle Vitiello, Professor and Chair of French and Francophone Studies department at Macalester Colleger, received her Ph.D. from Stanford University, her Diplôme d’études universitaires supérieures (D.E.U.G.) and License from Paris XIII in France. She started the French Lectures Series for the department in fall 1999. She focuses on 20th-21st-century French and francophone literature and culture; Haitian literature and culture; French and Francophone Cinema; Postcolonial identities; Immigration, and Violence in France and the francophone world.
This event is made possible thanks to the generosity of ‘‘Les Amis de la Bibliothèque’’, a group dedicated to supporting and enhancing the AFMSP Library’s diverse resources, literary programs, and annual cultural events. This group has been created to honor the memory of Hélène Nahas Peters (1919-2020) who devoted thirty years of leadership and service to the AFMSP Library, helping grow the collection to more than 5,000 books.