Description
Book Synopsis''A deeply intelligent and searching book, one that makes you re-consider the narrative of your own life and reframe the story you tell yourself'' Hilary Mantel
A Guardian reader''s Best Book of 2018
There was a question that had come to trouble me a bit earlier, once I had taken the first steps on this return journey to Reims... Why, when I have had such an intense experience of forms of shame related to class ... why had it never occurred to me to take up this problem in a book?
Returning to Reims is a breathtaking account of one man''s return to the town where he grew up after an absence of thirty years. It is a frank, fearlessly personal story of family, memory, identity and time lost. But it is also a sociologist''s view of what itmeans to grow up working class and then leave that class; of inequality and shifting political allegiances in an increasingly divided nation. A phenomenon in France and a huge bestseller in Germany, Didier Eribon has written the defining memoir of our times.
''I was overwhelmed by this book. I felt I was reading the story of my life'' Edouard Louis, author of The End of Eddy
''A book about self-invention and belonging'' Colm Toibin
Trade ReviewA brilliant little book...a touching memoir of sexual awakening, and a gallery of philosophical ideas and characters -- Steven Poole * The Observer *
A deeply intelligent and searching book, one that makes you re-consider the narrative of your own life and reframe the story you tell yourself... Didier Eribon understands how deep the roots of inequality go -- Hilary Mantel
Returning to Reims played a capital role in my life... I was overwhelmed by this book. I felt I was reading the story of my life. -- Edouard Louis
This is a self-excoriating memoir... [Eribon] writes as someone who has scrubbed hard at the markings of destiny -- Marina Benjamin * New Statesman *
A stunning book -- vital and important -- Andrew McMillan
Hypnotic ... a gripping read * Daily Telegraph *
Eribon's memoir is fascinating: full of fretful honesty, battling with shame around his background and shame at being ashamed -- The Times
Eribon offers up a magnificent example of an enlightened life liberated by theory, written in a style that deftly moves between the intimate, the social and the political -- Annie Ernaux
A powerful book and one that I enjoyed immensely -- Geoffrey Beattie * Irish Times *
This is a beautiful book about suppression, losing touch with your roots, and regaining balance * Art in America *
An honest and moving personal narrative that is skilfully threaded through sociological and political analysis. I was captivated from beginning to end -- Diane Reay * author of Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes *
This intensely personal account of Didier Eribon's family is a fascinating and compelling read...The book is beautifully written (and as beautifully translated). It is at once pleasureable and edifying to read * Joan W. Scott *
Retour à Reims could be a novel. It has all the allure and attraction of one -- Claire Devarrieux * Libération *
[a] particular favourite... thinks in this space with nuance and style -- Joanna Lee * White Review BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
