Collapse

by Édouard Louis, Tash Aw (Translator)

I often hated my brother, but I have to understand his life.

From ‘one of the most important, politically vital and morally bracing writers of his generation’ GUARDIAN

An unflinching account of Édouard Louis’s brother’s life and death.

‘France’s biggest literary sensation’ NEW YORK TIMES

Édouard’s brother spends much of his life dreaming. He lives in a poor, working-class world, where he imagines that he will become one of the finest butchers in France, that he will travel, that he will make his fortune, that he will restore cathedrals, and that he will earn his father’s love.

But his reality allows him none of this. There is no way to escape, no one who can show him how, and everything about him – his drinking, his violence, his behaviour with women and with others – condemns him.

At thirty-eight he is found dead on the floor of his small studio apartment. This book is the story of his collapse.

Translated by Tash Aw

‘I feel so lucky to be living and writing at the same time as Édouard Louis’ MAGGIE NELSON

‘One of the major writers of our time’ GARTH GREENWELL

‘Édouard Louis is a master of the poetics of juxtaposition, elucidating the hostile and the intimate, the murky and the pure, the vulnerable and the resilient’ YIYUN LI

Kindle Edition

Expected publication June 4, 2026

About the author

Édouard Louis is a French writer born October 30, 1992. Édouard Louis, born Eddy Bellegueule, grew up in Hallencourt (Somme) before entering theater class at the Lycée Madeleine Michelis in Amiens. From 2008 to 2010 he was a delegate of the Amiens Academy to the National Council for High School Life, then studied history at the University of Picardy.

From 2011, he is pursuing sociology studies at the ENS in the rue d'Ulm. In 2013, he obtained a name change and became Édouard Louis.

The same year, he directed the collective work Pierre Bourdieu. Insubordination as a legacy to the PUF, a work in which Bourdieu's influence on critical thinking and on emancipation policies is analyzed. In March 2014, he announced that he would direct a collection, "Des mots", devoted to transcripts of conferences, interviews and short texts, for this publisher.

In February 2014, at the age of 21, he published En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule, a novel with a strong autobiographical influence. Very commented on in the media, and widely praised for its qualities, the book also gives rise to several controversies, notably on the way in which it depicts his family and his social background.

After the publication of the book, the themes it addresses are worth to Edouard Louis to receive in March 2014 the Pierre Guénin price against homophobia and for equal rights: the press release from the SOS homophobia association notes that “Édouard Louis makes you aware of the impregnation of homophobia in the daily lives of LGBT people.