Exploration of Parisian Lesbian Nights, Gospel 2.0, Queer Autofiction or a Luminous Social Chronicle, Spring is Rich in Bookstores with a Seductive Bloom. Here is Our Selection.
By Tessa Lanney and Laure Dasinieres
Nocturnal
In a terse and radical language, Anne F. Garréta documents her youth as a DJ at Katmandou, the iconic Parisian lesbian nightclub. An Oulipian traversal of lesbian nights in the 1980s, where only music, dancing, writing and loves matter.
>> DJ. Portrait of the Artist as a Nighttime Animal, by Anne F. Garréta. Mercure de France.
Plastic
In this short text co-edited with the Centre Pompidou, Kev Lambert imagines a fiction around a Louise Bourgeois work, whose shapes evoke both phalli and breasts. An opportunity for the Quebecois writer to evoke the intimate and social experience of trans identity.
>> Cumul I, by Kev Lambert. Grasset.
Luminous
For his awaited return, the American poet and novelist Ocean Vuong signs a hopeful novel at the heart of an America that leaves the most vulnerable behind. A touching story of friendship told with a subtle pen that blends gentleness and irony.
>> The Emperor of Joy, by Ocean Vuong. Gallimard.
Indomitable
Molly Bolt, lesbian, poor and brilliant, refuses to conform and makes it known. Published in 1973, Rubyfruit Jungle is a coming-of-age novel stuffed with humor, as cult as it is insolent. In the manner of an enraged Dorothy Allison, Rita Mae Brown describes class violence with swagger and irony.
>> Rubyfruit Jungle, by Rita Mae Brown. Héloïse d’Ormesson.
Dark
Sarah is accused of murdering her partner. During her trial, power, blows, and breakups come to light… Between courtroom narratives and the examination of a toxic relationship, Agnès Vannouvong sketches the raw picture of a dysfunctional couple.
>> Brute, by Agnès Vannouvong. Mercure de France.
Historical
Karl M. Baer was born in Germany in 1885. Probably intersex, he was raised as a girl and would take years to understand his masculine identity and then obtain his reassignment. His memoirs were initially published in 1905. They return to us today with a postface by queer philosopher Paul B. Preciado.
>> Mémoires des années de jeune fille d’un homme, by N. O. Body. Seuil.
Lucid
With Brûle bébé, Matthieu Barbin – alias Sara Forever, finalist of Drag Race France –, signs his first novel, both a sensitive autofiction and a fiery coming-of-age novel. Naturalistic without pathos, the text scrutinizes the metamorphosis of a queer body and mind that invents itself and burns.
>> Brûle bébé, by Matthieu Barbin. Au Diable Vauvert.
Therapeutic
The Bechdel Test is this minimal syndical threshold of representation: two identified women, a conversation between them, and not a man at the center. Iris Brey and Alison Bechdel remind us that before becoming a cultural thermometer brandished everywhere, it was born in 1985 in the lesbian comic The Essentials of the Gouines to Follow. The essay shows how a tool born in a marginal lesbian context was gradually emptied of its political charge by becoming a simple indicator of “good representation”.
>> The Real History of the Bechdel Test, by Iris Brey and Alison Bechdel. Denoël.
Autobiographical
A biting British comedian writing as a bisexual author, Fern Brady discovered her autism later in life. From this adult diagnosis that illuminated her entire journey, she draws a narrative full of irony and self-deprecation, offering a particularly relevant perspective on neurodiversity.
>> Not Conforming, by Fern Brady. Rivages.
Biblical
Imagine that today, in a world saturated with images and social networks, a young woman finds herself pregnant without having slept with a man… In a writing that borrows as much from young adult narratives as from Margaret Atwood’s utopias/uchronies, Louise Morel (How to Become a Lesbian in 10 Steps) signs a novel both humorous and chilling.
>> I Tell the Truth, by Louise Morel. Hors d’atteinte Editions.
Illuminating
Pierre Niedergang rereads Enlightenment philosophers through queer experiences to reveal their blind spots and possible extensions in order to propose a lineage. He deconstructs the idea of an opposition between universalism and minorities, re-inscribing LGBTQI+ struggles into a broader political history.
>>> Our Illuminations: The Queer Enlightenment Hypothesis, by Pierre Niedergang. Cambourakis Editions.
